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Uable of Contents. 



jfir^t part. 

DURIXM Tin: WAR. 

liisciiptiou to the Black Horse Cavalry, (/aptaiii 
S(^ott,its lirst Captain, joins the Cont'ederaoy at 
Montgomery p a g i: a 

Tlie Peace Conference page b 

Frontis])iece page c 

A Ruse which deterred Butler, with his Army of 
Thirty Thousand Men, from occupying Peters- 
burg and saving Richmond from attack, in an 
unguarded point; with equal success a similar 
strategem is employed at "High Bridge." Let- 
ter from Doctor w\ W . H. Thackston, the Aid 
de Cam p page 7 

Letter t'roui General William L. Cabell, stating 
the promotion of Colonel Scott to the rank of 
Colonel in Trans-Mississippi and containing a 
recital ofjiis own campaign and battles, in Ar- 
kansas and Missouri, with his cajjture by the 
Federals in the open prairie page 8 

The First Battle of Manassas with a vivid and pic- 
turesque description of it by Captain William 
Fitzhugh Randolph; a cavalry pnrsnit and the 
capture of the enemy's artillerj'. A rei)roduc- 
tion of Ca})tain Hcott's Report to Brigadier 
General Holmes of the action of his squadron 
the 21st of July. Major Gordon's interesting- 
Letter in relation to the tight page 10 

Recollections of the Civil War. Pope's campaign 
in Virginia. Ls defeated by Jackson at Slaugh- 
ter's mountain and b}^ Lee at the Second Manas- 
sas. The Battalion reports to General Lee page 26 

Stuart's incursion into Pennsylvania. The Cham- 

bersbu rg Raid p A ge 39 

Stuarfs operations; Double skirmish at Markliam; 

Stuart's Regittient of eight men page 46 



Again between the invading Army and Rich- 
mond. A false imprisonment and what came of 
it. A glance at the Battle of Fiedericksbnrg..PAGE 49 

A race-problem page 58 

Letter from Honorable Roger A.Pryor, a Judge of 

the Supreme Court of New York page54 

©art Seconb. 

AFTER THE WAK. 

The Coupon Controversy page 55 ; 

Answer to a Rule to show cause page 58 

Letter from Judge William J. Robertson page 66 

An Appeal to the Areopagus page 68 

In memoriam Judge Robertson page 81 

Testimonials. Letter from Senator Daniel page 82 

Letters to The True Index page85 

Address to the Voters of Fauquier County page 94 



Secoub BMtion, 



B JBrocbuvc tor private Circulation, 






Inscription. 

The object of this comjjilation is to inform my grand- 
children that I, their grand-father, in obedience to an 
impentive sense of duty, was engaged throughout its 
continuance in the arbitrament of arms^between the two 
sections of the Union^ serving, as best I could, in the 
army of Northern Virginia, in turn commanded by Gen- 
erals Beauregard, Joseph Eggleston Johnston, and final- 
ly the illustrious Robert Edward Lee; also that, as one 
of the Commonwealth's Attorneys, I was an actor in Vir- 
ginia's memorable encounter in the Federal Courts with 
her British Creditor — "the Coupon Controversy" — an 
event that deserves a place in the memory of every Vir- 
ginian. Bs a memento of out (Iomrat)sbtp I have the 
the honour to address the Brochure to the glorious Black 
Horse, in association with whom, before the war, as their 
First Captain, I learned to handle cavalry. It was prior 
to the time at which I offered my sword to President 
Davis at Montgomery, when the Southern Confederacy 
was but a germ. 

John Scott, of Fauquier. 
Colonel of Cavalrv Confederate States' Arm v. 



^be peace Conference, 

The glorious object of tlie CUjiivoeation at tlie Hague 
lias been attained. Mediation has been recommended 
and a Court of Arbitration provided to whose just de- 
cisions nations Avill su])mit their controversies. Disar- 
mament is a conseqnence. This blest condition comes 
from the Glad Tidings announced in the silent watches 
of the night to the shepherds of Judea: ''Glory to God 
in the highest and on earth peace." It is the event of the 
centuries and mankind will ever revere and bless Nicolas 
the Second of Rnssia wlio causes the beneficent act. 




Col. 5obn Scott, ot 3f auquier. 



Tli;c d)akwao0il Family, 

To enable those for whom this Brochure is intended, al 
ready widely dispersed, to reco.^nise their rela- 
tions and know from whom they are sprung I at- 
tach the names of my parents and their adult 
children. 

Honorable John Scott of Oakwood, Fauquier county,'a" 
Judge of the General Court of Virginia and ex officio the 
Judge of the Judicial Circuit in which he resided and 
his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Blackwell Pickett Scott a daugh- 
ter of Martin Pickett Esquire, an extensive planter and 
slaveliolder of Fauquier county and Lie itenant Colonel 
of the 3rd Virginia Infantry of General Washington's 
Army of the Revolution. [lie was brother to Mr. George 
Pickett of Richmond from whom was descended General 
George E. Pickett, called '^the Game-Cock. "] Their 
adult chiklren, in the order of seniority, were: Elizabeth 
Rhickwell Scott who died at the age of twenty years un- 
married an early victim of misunderstood and mistrear- 
ed typhoid fever Honorable Robert Eden Scott; [Major 
Robert Taylor Scott of Warrenton, Va., was the oklest 
chiki of Honorable Robert Eden Scott. He was, 
tlirougliout the war of the Sections an officer in the 
Army of the Confederate States and, at the })eriod of 
his death, August 5, 1897, was Attorney General of the 
State of Virginia, Honorable R. Carter Scott of Rich- 
mond, his son, was chosen to comj l:^te his father's 
unexpired term of office.] Mrs. Maria Martin 
Scott Morson Avife of Arthur Alexander Morson a 
member of the Richmond Bar; Mrs. Margaret Gordon 
Sc )tt Lee, wife of Robert Eden Lee Esquire a 
p'anter and slaveholder of Fauquier county, son to Hon 
orable Charles Lee Attorney General to President Wash- 
ington's Administration and uncle to General Robert 
Edward Lee, Comuiander of the Armj^ of Northern Vir- 
ginia; Colonel John Scott of Fauquier; Doctor Martin 
Pickett Scott Professor of Bioloo-y and other branches 



of srienre in tlie Maryland A o-ricnltnral College. Doctor 
8cott received his medical education in (he City of Paris 
and throughont the AVar of the Sections was a surgeon 
in the Confederate Army; Charles Francis Scott who 
died at the age of eighteen years a cadet of the Virginia 
Military Institute. 

Judge Scott was the son of Rev^erend. John Scott of 
(lordonsdale in Fauquier county and his wife Mrs. 
Elizabeth Gordon Scott daughter to Professor Thomas 
Gordon of Aberdeen University, Scotland, Avhere Rever- 
end John Scott received his education. At the close of 
his college term Reverend John Scott was ordained a 
minister of The Established Church of England for the 
Colony of Virginia bj^ the Bishox? of London. Judge 
Scott was younger brother to Professoi Robert Eden 
Scott of Aberdeen University, who as an infant had been 
left with his Grand Parents w^hen his father and mother 
sailed for A^irginia on a three months tedious voyage. 
Thus it hapi^ened that the younger bi'other became a 
Virginia Judge and the elder an Aberdeen Professor . 
A Tablet in Latin was placed in the Cathedral of Old 
Aberdeen to the memory of Professor Robert Eden Scott 
shown me by Principal Cambelle of the University who 
did me the honour to transcribe it for my use. 

[For fnrther information see Doctor Harden's Virgin- 
ia Genealogies. 



PART FIRST. 

2)urinG the Mai\ 

H IRuse ot Mat. H ifiSniltaut Bxploit 

The following article was published in thePhiladelphia 
Weekly Times, one of the most broad-minded journals 
of the country, soon after the war, and was afterwards 
incorporated in "The Annals of the War by the princi- 
pal participants North and South." We omit notes 
verifying statements made, because the body of this ar- 
ticle takes more space than we can aiford in justice to 
readers in quest of current tojDics and local news. We 
take pride in copying the article because a chief actor 
is a Fauquier man now a last year's leaf, as it were, 
bronzing the foliage of Spring. When Col. Scott re- 
turned from his expedition to Butler's camp, a citizen 
of Petersburg, the Cockade Town of Virginia, said to- 
him: "If that service had been x)erformed in the North 
ern Army they would have made you a Brigadier Gen- 
eral." To which Colonel Scott modestly replied: "Such 
things aje quite too common with us to receive or to 
merit attention." — Tkue Index. 

When General Butler, in the Spring of 1864, landed, 
at City Point and Bermuda Hundreds, with an army of 
thirty thousand men, accomi3anied and guarded by a 
fleet of iron clads and gunboats, why he did not, at once 
occupy Petersburg, then without a garrison, to possess 
which afterwards cost so much blood to the invading 
army, is a question the answer to which is not obvious. 
Petersburg lay on the line of railway leading south from 
Richmond, distant 22 miles. It was twelve miles from 
City Point, situated at the junction of Appomattox and 
James rivers, and was connected with Petersburg by a 
railroad, a navigable river, and a broad highway run- 
ning through a level country, not occupied by hsstile 
forces. Colonel John Scott of Fauquier was the officer 
employed by Gen Pickett in the production of causes 
which resulted in the preservation of Petersburg from 
capture, and an account of his action is necessary to an- 
swer the question stated above. It will display some of 
the hazards and possibilities of war, on which often turn 



important events, and will afford a modicum of infor- 
mation to tlie historian of the future who would gather 
up all the facts to enable him, with an impartial pen, 
to relate the story of the great war of the American 
Sections, the product of an unnatural Union and a pros- 
tituted Constitution, Moreover it will do justice, in a 
very trying emergency, to the conduct and valor of 
Major G-eneral George E. Pickett, a West Point cadet 
and an able commander in the renowned Army of 
]^^ orthern Virginia, whose repution is very dear to the 
South. To render this incident intelligible to one not 
informed of the military facts to which it refers, and 
out of which it grew, it will be necessary to state the 
situation in the Department of North Carolina, in which 
Petersburg was included, or so much of it as affected 
that point. Though General Pickett had been relieved 
of the command of the DejDartment he was still in Pe- 
tersburg when Butler dropped, as it were from the clouds, 
on City Point. The troops for the defence of Peters- 
burg had been transferred to North Carolina, excepting 
a single regiment of Clingman's brigade of Infantry, 
numbering about six hundred men; nor had any part 
arrived of the soldiers of Beauregard, wh3 had succeed- 
ed Pickett in the command. Thus the defences of Pe- 
terburg, constructed with cost and skill, were 
left open to occupation by the Federal commander. 
Why so important a point was left unguarded, even for 
a day, has never been exj)lained to the public. Colonel 
Walter Harrison, the biographer of Pickett's men, 
states that, as early as the preceding November, Pick- 
ett had penetrated the enemy's design to make, by 
James river, an expedition against Petersburg and had 
held a conference with the Confederate authorities in 
relation to it. He had even carried his representations 
to General Lee and had been referred to Beauregard, 
with whom he had consulted at Weldon. Colonel Har- 
rison continues: "But the expedition at this time 
was put on foot, much valuable time was wasted 
and the troops, which at once should have been 
ordered to Petersburg, were kept in North Carolina, do- 
ing little or nothing, while Pickett, in Petersburg, was left 



witli merely a handful of men. " He then adds: "Beau- 
regard was in no way responsible for this. He had no 
control of the troops, and, I have understood, strongly 
urged their being hastened to Petersburg to support 
Pickett." But the danger from the lower James was ap- 
preciated not alone by Gen. Pickett. A gentleman of the 
city, not connected with the army, a short time before 
the descent on City Point, had pointed out to Colonel 
Scott, on one of the military maps of the day, its exposed 
condition from the river, and predicted that Bermuda 
Hundreds would be the point which the enemy next 
would strike. 

A short time before the occurrence of the events about 
to be related. Colonel John Scott, but recently returned 
from Trans-Mississippi, where he had been promoted to 
the rank of Colonel, had reported to Gen. Pickett for 
duty. At the time of his arrival Petersburg was vacant 
of soldiers, everything was in repose and he occupied 
the leisure by inspecting the fortifications, and in other 
ways that pleased him. At an early hour while he was 
engaged with Schiller's "Thirty Years War," an officer 
of the staff summoned him to report without delay to 
Gen. Pickett. He found everything astir at Head 
Quarters, and was informed by General Pickett that 
Butler had occupied City Point, and that, as he was the 
only cavalry officer on the ground, he must take a com- 
mand of cavalry, to reconnoitre the enemy's position, to 
remain close to his outposts, and, if possible, to induce 
the belief that an attacking force was at hand; but that 
he had no troops, and that Petersburg must fall into 
his hands, unless Butler could be entertained with this 
false opinion until Beauregard could arrive from the 
South. The General was asked where the command of 
cavalry was to be founds He responded that he had no 
cavalry, but would exert himself to get together a band 
of mounted citizens, and with these the duty must be 
performed, With characteristic energy the General set 
about to get together such a body as he desired and in 
§0 chivalrous a community, it was not long before Colo- 
nel Scott found himself at the head of thirty horsemen 
armed with such weapons as each man could provide. 



It proved a difRcnlt thing, on the spur of the occasion, for 
the commander of the party to procure a suitable horse 
for his own use, but one finally was obtained a superb 
animal, in the highest keep, recently bought from a 
James river planter, and named "Planter," but forAvhich 
a price was agreed to be paid large even in the depre- 
ciated currency of the Confederate States. A cavalry 
man, a very gallant soldier, at home on a furlough, was 
the only enlisted man who joined the expedition and 
was the only one killed on that tour duty. As the mount- 
ed party passed outside the City, on the road leading to 
City Point, the regiment North Carolina infantry was 
seen camped on the right, as if thrown forward to oi)i30se 
Butler's army, and what guns there were were mounted 
on the fortifications that side. It was evident that the 
intre^Did Pickett was not dismayed at the storm-cloud 
which lowered Petersburg. 

Towards the close of the da^^ the expedition came in 
view of the enemy's out-]3osts. The work of observation 
Avas at once begun, the officer in command taking care 
to make as deceptive a display of his numbers as the lay 
of the ground permitted. 

From early morning these tactics were repeated the next 
day and the next. There was a barn stored with forage 
equidistant between the pickets and the position held 
by the Confederates. Butler would occupy the house 
by day, but his soldiers would withdraw at nightfall, 
when Pickett's volunteers would obtain from it food for 
their animals. When the expedition first drew near the 
Federal out-j^osts Gen. Roger A. Pryor, a successful 
lawyer and brilliant advocate at the New York bar, 
[now a wise and trusted Judge,] who had joined as a 
volunteer, was solicitous to engage them. But the offi- 
cer in command would not allow it to be done. He of- 
fered no explanation of Pickett's designs and Gen. 
Pryor retired from Avhat appeared to be, purposely, a 
tame and inglorious service. A collision of his loose ar- 
ray with disciplined soldiers, Colonel Scott thought 
would disclose, to the acute perception of General But- 
ler, the deception he was seeking to impose on him. 
In this attitude things continued until the third or 



fourth day, (Pickett said that the expedition Avas absent 
five days) when a reconnoisance in force preceded by 
skirmishers issued from tlie Federal lines and advanced 
on the highway leading to Petersburg. That morning 
the officer commanding the Confederates had been told 
by a citizen, who had come from his home to witness the 
outcome of those singular movements, that Butler's col- 
ored soldiers had visited the vicinity of their camps and 
had learned, from the resident negroes, the insignificant 
force opposed to them. It was evident to the ofiicer 
then that the Federal reconnoisance had been sent out 
to discover the truth, a^d Colonel Scott replied to his 
informant: "What was true yesterday is not true to-day, 
and we are prepared now to receive General Butler's re- 
connoisance." The volunteers had been broken into 
many parts and were scattered along the enemy's front. 
With one of these, consisting of three or four men, the 
leader retired before the skirmishers until he reached 
the point where the rail-road crossed the highway. 

There Colonel Scott halted, and after placing his men 
in a protected situation, returned to take a nearer view 
of the advancing skirmishers, an inexcusable act, for al- 
ready" he had won the prize for which he had been play- 
ing the game of war. His horse was fatally wounded in 
the head by a bullet from the skirmishers, but procur- 
ing another, he continued the retreat as before. As soon 
as the railway was crossed a dense body of wood was 
entered and it was observed that cavalry had been thrown 
before the skirmishers and were making ready to charge. 
It then became a contest of the spur, and the Southern- 
ers reached the Confederate outpost in safety. A round 
of musketry emptied a good number of saddles, and 
General Butler's reconnoisance retreated to his camps. 
The citizen soldiers did not reassemble, for each man 
was conscious that Pickett's design had been carried in- 
to effect, and that Petersburg was safe. When Colonel 
Scott reported to General Pickett that the expedition to 
Butler's camp had been successful he was received very 
cordially, though Pickett, indeed, by the arrival of 
Beauregard, was the first to be informed of the success 
of his own designs. Had Butler been apprized of the 



6 
situation at Petersburg, during the interval between the 
occupation of City Point and Beauregard's coming, 
fair Petersburg would have yielded herself his captive 
and Richmond, in an unguarded point, been exposed to 
attack. His first object was to sever the Southern con- 
nections of Richmond, as appeared by the attack on 
Port Walthall Junction, repulsed by the gallant Hay- 
good, as well as by the attempt of Cautz's cavalry di- 
vision on the railroad running South from Petersburg. 

Soon after these occurences Colonel Scott was sent to 
take charge of the forces stationed for the defence of 
High Bridge, spanning the Appomattox near Farmville, 
composed of three hundred reserves — men over, and 
youths under, the military age. When General 
Kilpatick, with fifteen hundred Federal cavalry, 
reached Burksville, ten miles from High Bridge, 
with the purpose to destroy that link of the rail- 
way between Richmond and Lynchburg, Col- 
onel Scott again employed with entire success but 
under widely different circumstances, the statagem 
of war which had been imposed on General Butler, and 
so preserved that stately edifice from destruction. Doc- 
^OY Thackston; the distinguished dentist, and honored 
citizen of Farmville, having been embodied in the re- 
serve branch of the Confederate army, was a most intel- 
ligent and efficient Aid de Camp on the occasion. 

A Note. 

When, after the termination of the Civil war. Colonel 
Judson was a visitor at Warrenton, Va., he expressed 
the wish that Colonel Scott would call to see him at his 
hotel, which as soon as Colonel Judson' s wish was com- 
municated to him, Colonel Scott was very glad to do. 
Colonel Judson then informed him that he was with 
General Butler at City Point, the time of his landing, 
in command of a regiment of horse and, along with oth- 
er officers, had entreated the General to allow them to 
capture, or drive aAvay the Confederates that were hang- 
ing about his pickets, but the General refused his per- 
mission, saying: "He was unwilling to expose his men 
to the masked batteries of the Rebels." 



Xetter from 2)r. Ubacftston to CoL 5obn Scott 

Farmville, Va.. Sept. 14t]i; 1894. 
Colonel John Scotti Warrenton, Va. 

Dear Colonel Scott: — I hasten to explain and apol- 
ogize for an accidental delay in acknowledging a print- 
ed copy of General Cabell's letter, and your own ac- 
count of the masterly strategy which under your direc- 
tion and supervision saved from the enemy High Bridge 
and the City of Petersburg. 

Your enclosure was received while I was too much in- 
disposed to write, or do any thing else, and in some 
way was misplaced and only just recovered from a pack- 
age of letters and papers filed away to be attended to on 
my recovery. 

I beg to thank you for the two papers, which I have 
read with great interest and satisfaction, and especially 
for the handsome personal allusion you made to the 
service it fell to my lot to render you at High Bridge. 

I don't exactly understand the need of General Ca- 
bell's letter. Has any one dared attack your military 
record? If so you may spare yourself any concern or 
solicitude, for there are hundreds and thousands of old 
Confederates yet left who stand ready to vindicate your 
patriotism and courage in the field and your abilities 
and skill as a commanding officer in the armies of the 
Confederacy. Had the war lasted a year longer, your 
office and title would have been General instead of Col- 
onel of a regiment. Of this I feel assured and satisfied. 

Are you going to write a book of your campaigns? 
If you are set me down for a copy. 

Again thanking you, my dear Colonel, for your favor 
and kind remembrance, and with every good wish for 
your success, health and happiness, I again have the 
pleasure of subscribing myself very truly and faithfully 
your friend and obedient servant. 

W. W. H. Thackston. 



IS'ote: — As an explanatinn to Dr. Thackston we add 
that General Cabell's letter was written to explain the 
military reason because of which the rank of Colonel 
was conferred on Colonel Scott in Trans-Mississippi- 



8 • 
the power to do whicli liad been conceded to tlie Com- 
mandant of that Department, by the military authori- 
ties in Richmond, after they had lost control of the Mis- 
sissippi, and communication had become irregular and 
difficult. Editor of Index, 

(Beneral Cabeirs Xetter. 

General W. L. Cabell — a member of the honorable 
and distinguished Cabell family of lower Virginia, and 
a graduate of AYest Point — when the civil war began was 
Quarter-Master General of Beauregard's command at 
Manassas, a position of peculiar responsibility in the rap- 
id organization of the lirst army to breast the onset of 
the great Northern power. Later General Cabell was 
promoted and was transferred to an infantry command 
in the South where he won fame on many a hard-fought 
field for conduct and gallantry. Finally he was sent to 
the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate 
State where he increased his high reputation as a soldier. 
His superior officers were General Holmes, Commandant 
of the State of Arkansas, and General E. Kirby Smith, 
the Military Chief of the entire Department West of the 
Mississippi, consisting of the States of Arkansas, Texas 
and the greater part of Louisiana. After the Federal 
gunboats had obtained control of the Mississippi river 
the Department of General E. Kirby Smith, for the 
purx)oses of the war, was completely severed from the 
Confederate States and was thrown on its unaided resour- 
ces. It was a difficult thing then for a Confederate sol- 
dier to cross the river, policed night and day by gunboats, 
and its banks patrolled by Federal cavalry, with spies 
and informers everywhere. Then it was that the pow- 
er to bestow military rank was conferred on the Com- 
mandant of the Dei^artment, thus sundered from the 
Confederacy, which was generally done on recommenda- 
tions originating with the officers of the several com- 
mands. 

When the war closed General Cabell removed from 
the vicinity of Fort Smxith, where his family had resid- 
ed, to the city of Dallas in Texas, of which repeatedly 
he has been elected Mayor, a mark of the honor in which 



9 
lie is held by his neighbors and follow-citizens. The fol- 
lowing letter, addressed to the Commonwealth's Attor- 
ney of this connty, explains itself; and shows the appre- 
ciation as a soldier in which he was held by his com- 
mander* 

Dallas, Tex., Dec. 28, 1890. 
CoL John Scott, Warrenton. Va.: 

Dear Colonel. — Yonr letter of tlie 16tli came to hand 
to-day. It gave me nincli pleasure to receive it, and 
much moi'e to know 3^0 u were in the land of the living. 

It has been a long time since we parted, and I would 
state from memory that you reported to me early in the 
spring of 1863, x>robably Marcli or April, as Major. Need- 
ing an officer of your experience and military knowledge 
to take cliai'ge of one of my important out-^^osts, I 
found trouble on account of your rank, and in order to 
make use of you as an officer much needed I made you 
a Colonel and put you in command. I reported it to 
Major General Holmes in command of the Department, 
and it was ai)proved by liim and forwarded to General 
E. Kirby Smith who confirmed tlie appointment, as I 
alwa3^s understood he had authority to do; and in a per- 
sonal interview with both Gens. Smith and Holmes your 
apxx)intnient was referred to, and both reiterated tlieir ap- 
proval. After my regiments were all hlled Avith officers and 
and after my command was moved to Soutli Arkansas, you 
applied to go to Virginia as Colonel, and was allowed to 
go as such. [Colonel Jolm Scott desired to return to 
Kichmond by reason of erroneous information that the 
vouchers of a recruiting account had been lost.] I can 
say you did yowy duty as a brave, true and patriotic sol- 
dier; and I lioi^e yo;i may live many years to come. As 
to this being an irregular warfare, I had one of the hnest 
brigades in the Confederate service — as well drilled and 
discixdined as any brigade in the army — fought as many 
hard battles as any one brigade — killed more Federals, 
white, black and red, than any one brigade in the Army. 
The number of hghts and the number of men lost in bat- 
tle will prove what I say. Look at the losses of my 
Brigade alone at Back Bone Mountain, Poteon River, 
Arkadelphia. Wolf Creek, Spoonersville, PromisL'Anne 



Jo 
Poison Springs, Elkius Ferry, Marks Mill (where I cap- 
tured a train of nearly three hundred wao^ons, a battery 
of artilery — Robb's Indian battery, six pieces — and 
fourteen hundred prisoners.) At Poison Springs we 
captured, Marmaduke and myself, a train of 200 wagons, 
two pieces of artillery, about fifty prisoners, and killed 
nearly four hundred, p]'incix)ally negroes of the 1st Kan- 
sas, colored. Also Loutonville, Glass Tillage, Pilot 
Knobb inMissonri, Franklin, Jefferson City, Lexington, 
La Mine, Independence, West Point, Missouri, the Lit- 
tle Blue, Marrie T)e Cygne, Mine Creek in Kansas where 
I was captured in the open prarie. l^eside these the 
Bri.o'ade was in a great number of skirmishes. I am in 
clined to think that this is not the proper time for old 
Confederates to hunt up Haws, if any ever existed, in 
the rank of those men who went out to save theii' country. 
Yes, sir, you are a Colonel, wdtli all the rank that could 
be confered on you by Kirby Smith on the recommenda- 
tion of General Holmes and General Cabell; and I hoi)e 
that you will live many years as pleasantl}^ with your 
family and friends as you served with me. 

Will try and see your sons and hope that when you 
come to Texas that you will pay a visit at my home in 
Dallas. Please give my respects to my old friends, es- 
l)ecially General Payne. Wishing you and yours a mer- 
ry Xmas and a happy new year, 

I am vour old friend, 

W. L, Caijell. 

Ifir^t/IDauassas. 

CLOSIXG SCENES OF THE liATTLE — (AVALKY misriT. 



The Dispatch has received the following, which is ''in 
scribed to the ladies of RiclHuond for their generous fi- 
delity to the lost cause.'' 

Dispatch. 
Waukentox, \ a. 
The Editor of the Richmond Dispatch: The subjoined 
letter, wdiich I request you to publish in your wide- 
spread and metropolitan journal, is from the artistic pen 
of Captain AVilliam Fitzliugh Randolph of Greenville, 



Jl 

Mississippi. Capl Randolph, liimspU' a gallant Con- 
federate officer, is brother to Bishop Randol2)h of Vir- 
ginia, and of the military and historic family of the very 
distinguished Captain Buckner Magill Randolph, of the 
Confederate infantry, as as well as kinsman to the cour- 
agous and accomplished Colonel Robert Randolph, of 
the cavalry corps attached to theArmy of Northern Vir- 
ginia, but who sleeps now with the the unnumbered dead 
of our civil war. 

John Scott, of Fauquier, 
Colonel of Cavalry, 

Confederate States Arm v. 



CtKEKnville, August, 1895. 
Colonel John Scott: 

My Dear Colonel: — I hope yon will excuse the delay 
which has occurred in my answer to your letter, receiv- 
ed some weeks ago, which has been occasioned, first l)y 
ni}^ absence from home,and then by a spell of fever,from 
wliicli I have only re,^overed in the past few days. 

The extract which you give from Colonel Munford's 
repoit (see for the report itself, x:)age 534, Official Record 
of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Vol. 11) 
is so entirely inaccurate and at variance with all my own 
experience, that I think it better to supplement your 
own narrative by giving a brief account of my observa 
tion of some of the incidents of that memorable day. I 
did not at that, time as, perhaps, you are aware, belong to 
any organized commmand, but had been, in company 
with a few choice companions, scouting in front of our ar- 
my, and, on the day of the first battle of Manassas, act- 
ed as a sort of free lance, taking in the battle from the 
various stand-|)oints, which gave the best promise of in- 
terest and incident. It is well understood noAv that we 
were, on that day, out-generaled at every x3oint. The 
Federal commander, by a sham attack on the 18th, had 
masked his real design, while he marched the bulk of 
his army around by Sudley Mill, and thus precipitated 
a superior force upon the unprotectectd left flank and 
re.ir of the Confederates, turning our entire position 
and iN^nderin^' absolutalv useless all the defences wliich 



1/ 

liad been erected at Manassas, the day being onl}^ sav- 
ed by tlie indoniLtable courage of a few confederate brig- 
ades, who fought with a persevering tenacity which 
has been rarely equaled and never excelled on any of 
the great battle-fields of the world. Our army nunib'^r- 
ed nearly 30,000 and less than 10,000 of that number, 
through that long and terrible day bore the whole brunt 
of the Federal onset. Step by stej), contesting every 
inch of ground with desperate courage, our line was, 
slowly but steadily, driven back by the sheer weight of 
the Federal advance, outnumbered, as they were, al 
most ten to one. 

HEIJS^SELMAN'S REPORT. 

Heinselman, Avho commanded a division of the Fed- 
eral Army stated in his report to the department at 
Washington, with grim satire, that their defeat was not 
the result of masked batteries, or overAvhelming num- 
bers, but because regiments repulsed brigades and brig- 
ades drove back divisions But, notwithstanding this 
fact, the Confederate line was gradually forced back up 
the long slope leading to the Henry House. AVhen re- 
inforced by a few regiments of fresh troops, which had 
been hurried up from Manassas, the thin Confederate 
line closed up for a last stand on the apex of the ridge, 
which overlooked the stone-bridge and the whole ground 
over which the enemy had been advancing. I stood 
close behind, looking at the long solid ranks of the ene- 
my, as they were massing for a final assault, for, as I 
glanced along our line, it seemed almost certain that 
those worn and tired soldiers who had fought through 
the long, hot da}^, their ranks depleted to one half of 
their original strength, would surely be overwhelm end 
at last by the impact of numbers. Bee and Bartow had 
fallen. Of the Fourth Alabama which had entered the 
fiudit 850 strong, more than 4(^0 had gone down on the 
bloody field, and all that were engaged had suffered in 
the same proportion, but, with ranks unbroken, resolute, 
and dauntless still. Johnston and Beauregard l)oth were 
urging and encouraging the troops, and fully exposed 
to tiip whole Federal fire, the rainnie-balls coining thick 



and I'ast. Jac^ksoii stood near liis l)vi,i>a(lf\ willi cap 
drawn close over liis eyes, stern and silent, awaiting 
tlie catastrophe, and rendered rather more conspicnons 
l)y a wliite Ijandkercliief Avound aronnd his left hand 
wliicdi liad l)een slightly wonnded by. a bullet. 

SUCH THE SITUATION. 

Such was the situation when looking to our left. On 
the right think of the Federal advance, and a little in 
its rear, we saw the gleam of bayonets on the crest of 
tlie hills. It was but a single brigade; 8, ()()() strong, led 
l)y Kirl)y Smith, who, hearing the steady firing from the 
cars at Gainesville, had come across the country straight 
for the battle-field. As the brigade poured over the 
crest of the hill the pace Avas quickened to a double- 
quick, rushing down on the enemy's Hank, firing and 
shouting as they came. The Federal line halted, then 
wavered, wheeling a little to the right, as if to meet this 
fresh enemy, but their hearts seemed to fail them, be- 
fore that onward rush, and the right of the line began 
to crum])le like a roi)e of sand. Then it was that I saw 
Jackson laise his wounded hand and^Doint down to that 
wavei'ing line. Those worn and tired soldiers needed 
no second bidding. Tliej^ knew theirtime had come at 
last, and, apparently as fresh as when the battle open- 
ed in the morning, those young volunteers leaped like 
bloodhounds down the hill, and closed with the foe. 

The end liad come, and the battle Avas won — a victory 
as amazing ns it was unexpected. A moment before the 
advance of the solid blue lines seemed irresistible; noAV 
in the wildest panic, the Avhole held covered with a host 
of disorganized fugitives, flying as if all the devils of 
the lower I'egions were behind cliem. I was on many a 
hard-fought field afterwards, but never saw a scene like 
that, musket, knax^sack, everything in fine that impeded 
flight, was thrown away, and the disorganized, panic- 
stricken masses poured like an avalanche across the turn- 
pike, over the Stone-])ridge, into the woods and fields 
beyond. 

THE PRESIDENT. 
At tills iiincture I Avas stnndinii" not far from the Henry 



14 
house. Generals Joliiisoii and Beauregard were ^vitli 
President Davis, who hearing that the Confederate army 
was retreating, had come in a special car from liichmond, 
and had just ridden upon the field. Capt. Davis, at the 
head of the Albemarle Troop of cavalry, rode up the hill 
and was immediately ordered in i)ursuit. As tiie troop 
was passing near me Archie Smith of Winchester, a 
member of the company, and a near relative, called to 
me to join them, Avhich I Avas very glad to do. AVe])ass- 
ed close to Mr. Davis, Avith the tAvo Generals, avIio raised 
their caj)S to us, and giving them a rousing cheer, Ave 
rode on. At hrst our jn-ogiess Avas sIoav as we came up 
with the two regiments of South Carolinians, (KershaAv's 
Brigade), Avho together with Kempei's Battery, had been 
ordered to folloAv the enemy, AYe crossed the Stone- 
bridge, on the Warrenton 'pike, about a half mi]*^ l)e- 
yond the hill- At tbis point the two regiments of in- 
fantry halted on the left of the road, ami the Albemarle 
company formed on their right. Kemper's Battery then 
unlimbered, the guns Avere run out to the front, and 
commenced firing doAvn the 'pike at Avhat appeared to be 
a receding cloud of dust. The firing Avas kept up Jil)()iit 
fifteen minutes, until all signs of the fugitives had dis- 
appeared, resistance on their part having entirely ceased. 
• NO ORDERS. 
No orders being received to continue tlie pursuit, tlie 
Carolineans remained Avhere they had halted. Captain 
Scott, whom I then saAv for the first time, rode out into 
the road, and called for A'olnnteers to continue the ])ur- 
siiit. Captain Davis resi:)onded that his troop Avas ready. 
The gallant Caj^tain Scott did not Avait a moment, but 
dashed on, folloAved by Captain Davis's sixty men. ( Ja])- 
tain Scott, rendered conspicious by a Avhite liavelock, 
rode considerably in advance. Finding no obstruction 
to our advance, our pace Avas greatly accelerated. 
Occasionally a few of Tlie troopers Avould dj'op 
out of ranks, gather up some of the flying enemy, 
and start for the rear; but for the most part very little 
notice Avas taken of these fugitives, as they scattered 
right and left, Ave, riding through and over them, look- 
inii' for better a'ame. 



A])()u( sunse^t we desciilx'd in tlie disiaiicc a cloiid of 
dust, evidently made hy a part of the tlyiiig enemy. We 
spni'red our horses to a furious gallo]), and daslieddown 
U|)on tlieni. We soon found Avluit they were, some ten 
guns, i believe, including the black 82-pounder, called 
''Long Tom,'' which was to play such havoc with the 
Confederate ranks! The cannoneers and drivers made a 
desperate dash with their guns at Cub Kun bridge, 
which was immediately in their front. But, crowding 
too rapidly on the bridge, it broke under the Aveight, 
and baggage-w^agon, ambulance, caison, and all fell 
through into the stream below, forming an impassable 
bari'ier, which ])lo^'ked the way and effectually prevent- 
ed further passage. The cannoneers and drivers leaped 
fj'om their guns and darted into the bushes on either 
side ot* tlu* I'un, halving everything an easy capture. 

A TEMPTATION. 

The tem]>tation was too great for tlu^ average cavalry 
man, and Captain Davis himself with most of liis men, 
dismounted and commenced work on the tangled wreck. 
I myself, Avas about to dismount having an eye on a fine 
McClellan saddle, Avhich I wanted to secure, when Ar- 
chie Smith, who was still at my side, turned to me and 
said: "Yonder goes the ''White Havelock, AVill!'' 
''All right," I replied and we dashed after Captain Scott 
who was crossing the stream al)ove tlie wreck and de- 
bris, waving to the men to follow him. About fifteen 
of Davis's men followed us, but the most of them re- 
nuiined ])ehind to work with the guns and secure hors- 
es; saddles, and other ])lunder. W*^ joined Captain 
Scott on the other side of the run, and continued oui- 
wild ride faster than ever. AVe soon came to the foot 
of the hill upon which the little town of Centreville is 
situated. Crossino- a small stieam at the base, we rode 
ra])idly u]) the slope, and on the croAvn of the hill came 
in immediate c^uitact with a long blue line of Federal 
infantry, drawn up in battle-array. Riding up close to 
them Captain Scott shouted, "Surrender!" For a few 
seconds thev sefuued to hf^sitate, but hearin"' no sound 



of any advancing along the turnpike in our rear, an ofli- 
cer turned to his men and ordered them to fire. Our 
little band retreated at once and dashed down the liill 
rather faster than we had come up, receiving as we went 
the whole lire of perhaps three hundred infantry. Not 
a man, however was hurt, and we were soon out of sight 
hidden by the shades of night. 

A WHOLE BRIGADE. 
I ascertained afterwards that the troops we encountered 
on the heights of Centreville were a brigade, under Col- 
onel Miles, which had never been in the fight, but had 
been left to cover the retreat of the Federal army. 

With reference to the capture of the artillery and 
spoil at Cub Run bridge, the assertion that any com- 
mand, except the Albemarle Troop, led by Capt. Scott, 
had anything to do with it is without foundation. No 
other cavalry was in sight or hearing at the time, and 
had it not been for the headlong, furious charge of these 
fuxty men, all these guns, undoubtedly, avouM have 
crossed the bridge in safety and been on their way to 
Washington long before any other command had leach- 
ed the scene. To Captain Scott, tlierefore, and to him 
alone, the sole credit of the capture is due. The only 
part in the affair performed by Colonel IMunford and 
his command was in manual labor, required in hauling 
the cannon out of the wreck, securing the horses, etc. — 
Had the other cavalry leaders exhibited the same ener- 
gy, daring and enterprize which characterizrd C'aptain 
Scott, it is not at all improbable that the cavalry arm of 
the service alone might have ridden to Washington tliat 
night. But satisfied with what had been done, the ar- 
my remained quiescent, our generals not even knowing, 
until next day, that the enemy had disappeared. 'I'lius 
ended the first battle of ^Manassas, memorable not only 
for the marvelous rout and jmnic which characterized 
its close, but for the inconsequential result which fol- 
lowed so complete a victory. That an army of 80, 000 
men, flushed with victory, enthusiastic, clamorous to ad- 
vance, without an organized force in its front, capable 
of resistance, sh )uld have lain in camp for six long 



17 
montlis vvitliout making the slightest effort, is almost in- 
credible, and altogether past human understanding. 

Had the army advanced the next day, or even the day 
after, Washington would have fallen almost without a 
battle. We would have taken possession of Maryland 
and the whole face and character of the war would have 
been changed. That no attempt was made to do this ex- 
hibits, on the part of our generals an incai^acity and 
want of enterprize which has no parallel in the annals of 
Avar. General Johnston had visions of Patterson appear- 
ing on his flank and rear, and of frowning batteries on 
Arlington heights, when the truth was that Patterson 
had already crossed the Potomac, and his army, 
ready to disband, was fast disappearing over the Mary- 
land hills, while the batteries on Arlington Heights had 
no existence at all. 

Had the energy and skill w^hich distinguished the cam- 
liaigns of Lee and Jackson been shown by our gen- 
erals, who commanded that day, then would the First 
Manassas have been ranked among those great battles of 
history which have decided the fate of nations and exer- 
cised a controlling influence on the civilization of a con- 



tinent, 



AY. F. R. 



/IDajor (3or t»on^g Xette r« 
AT FIRST MANASSAS. 

THE CAPTURE OF THE GUNS AT CUB RUN BRIDGE 



A Letter to Colonel John Scott. 



Charlottesville, Va., Feb. 12, 1896. 
Colonel John Scott, Warrenton, Va: 

My Dear Colonel: — On Monday I received your let- 
ter of the 9th instant, Avith your address to the Junior 
Albemarle Light Horse, ancl yonr report of the effective 
service of the old company at the First battle of Manas- 
sas, with Captain Randolph's letter, as a companion- 
piece, and read them all with pleasure and interest. 



18 

This morning I called ni)on Captain Xelson, of our 
new company and presented liim tlie i^apers, as yon re- 
quested, but after reading tliem aloud to liim I begged 
the privilege of retaining them for a day or two, as I am 
anxious to read them to a few of my old comrades, who 
are living in town, before they are published, which 
Cax)tain Nelson proposed to have done. 

I hoiDe 3^ou will x^^i'clon my delay in acknoAvledging 
the receii^t of your communication, addressed to the 
Mayor of our city. These papers were handed me by a 
member of our camp, about a week ago, with the request 
that I would attend to the matter. It was at the com- 
mencement of the February term of our Circuit Court, 
when I was very busy, and could not give the subject the 
consideration and attention I desired, and which it de- 
served. 

I have not, however, been unmindful of my duty in 
the premises, for I have talked the matter over with 
several of my old comrades, whom I chanced to meet, 
and so far, every one of them has substantially sustain- 
ed Captain "Randolph's letter, and your report of the 
capture of the enemy's artillery at Cab Run, and lam 
satisfied that your rei^ort and the lettei* are strictly and 
accurately correct; though I am sorry to have to ac- 
knowledge that I was not one of the brave boys who fol- 
lowed the "White Havelock'' across the memorable 
stream on that eventful day nor was I jn-esent in the 
barn at Camp Wigfall, when your report was written, 
for on that day our worthy and gallant captain had me 
detailed to cook dinner for the company against my vei'y 
earnest protest. 

Since I received your letter on Monday however, I 
have been fortunate enough to meet Willis Goodie, W. 
D. Wheeler and George Marshall, all three of whom 
were at Cub Run, and followed your lead across, and 
charged the line of infantry, ^Their recollection corres- 
ponds with the fact as stated in your report, and they 
all say that they saw no other cavalry in sight when you 
made the charge. I very well remember that the capture 
of the enemy's guns by the company was clainu^d after 
the battle bv everv officer and man in it. 



INDELIBLY FIXED. 

Many of the incidents of that day are indelibly fixed 
in my memory, and recently I have been refreshing my 
recollection by talks with those of my old comrades 
whom I chanced to meet. When yonr command was or- 
dered forward from onr position, near the Lewis Honse, 
AYalker's Battery, which belonged to General Holmes' 
command, had arrived on the field, and opened fire on 
the retreating column of the enemy on the 'pike, across 
Bull Run, and as well as T remember his hrst shot 
ploughed a gap in their ranks. Your command then 
went forward, I think in front of Kemper's Battery. Of 
course, as a private in the ranks, I could get very little 
general idea of the fight as it was going on; but an inci- 
dent wdiich occured at a small frame house near the 'x)ike, 
which I remember very distinctly, makes me think I am 
right Some seven or eight of my company had been or- 
dered forward, as an advance guard. When we came to 
this house we found a number of Federals in and behind 
it. We ordered them to surrender, which they seemed 
very glad to do; but one fellow did not throw down his 
gun as quickl}^ as m^^ comrade Pat Marshall, thought he 
ought. \Yliereupon Pat raised his gun and fired, but 
missed his man. Just then you rode up, and drawing 
your pistol said, "I will shoot the first man who mis- 
treats a prisoner," whicTi scared my friend Pat more 
than the Federals had done. 

Soon after the occurrence, when a number of prisoners 
were being sent to the rear from this point, you moved 
our company from the road to the skirt of an adjacent 
wood, and then it w^as that Kemper's Battery opened fire 
down the road on the retreating enemy. 

ASKED FOR ASSISTANCE. 
While w^e w^ere drawn up in line on the edge of the 
Avood, fronting a small field, an infantry soldier ap- 
])roached our line and stated that Captain Radford was 
dangerously wounded; that he heard Captain Scott's 
name and asked that he w^onld send some one to his as- 
sistance. You immediately ordered Dr. William Sliack- 
leford, then a private in our company, and myself to go 



20 
to Captain Radford. We found him near tlie edge of 
the woods, about two or three hundred yards from Avhere 
our company w^as drawn ux3 in line. As soon as Shack- 
leford looked at him and saw how he was shot he said 
that Cax)tain Radford could not live thirty minutes, and 
I think he was dead before we got him into the ambu- 
lance. He was the first man that I ever saw die, and I 
well remember his last words, "God have mercy on my 
dear wife and children," 

It was while Shackleford and I were with Captain Rad- 
ford, I think that you again started in pursuit of the en- 
emy. This accounts, my dear Colonel, for my not being 
with you at Cub Run, and beyond it of which I am glad 
of, for I would not like my old commander to think me 
a laggard when such gallant work was being done, un- 
der your dauntless leadership. 

I recall my service while under your command, as one 
of the pleasantest of my war experiences, and <^specially 
the scouting party you took some six or seven of us on 
across the Occoquan. It was when you sent our horses 
back, and we footed it through the woods and fields to 
Avithin a short distance of Alexandria, and learned that 
the enemy was getting ready to advance. (They had ad- 
vanced, and a Baltimore Sun of that da\^ was procured 
which, as soon as we returned to camp was forwarded to 
General Beauregard.) On that scout, wliile resting under 
the shade of the trees, I know you taught me some histo- 
ry and mut'h States' right's doctrine. That day at old 
Mr. JN'evitt's, where we were so kindly and hospitably en- 
tertained by the old people and their tAvo beautiful daugh- 
ters, has always been marked with a Avhite stone in 
my memory; and I have often wished to read the novel 
which you promised the young ladies you would Avrite, 
afetr the Avar, in Avhich the scene was to be laid at and 
around Gunston Hall, and the fair damsels Avere to be 
the heroines of the story. 

When I get a little leisure time I will try to procure 
the statements of as many of the survivors of the old 
Light Horse as I can, in reference to the charge and cap- 
ture at Cub Run, and forAvard them to you. Already I 
liaA^e seen tlirey or four Avho have promised to come to 



21 
my office, read your report niid give me tlieir rerolleetion 
on the subject. 

I have never read Colonel Mnnt'ord's report, but I think 
lu}^ friend and neighbor, General Rosser, has the war se- 
ries, and I will borrow it and read his account. 

I will be glad to do anything that 1 can to aid in this 
nuitter. AVith best wishes for your health and liai^pi- 
ness, believe me to be, vei'v sincerely, your friend, 

MASON GORDON. 
Siindai/ Riclunoiid Dispatch, 

Substance of tbe IReport. 

Substance of the Report made to Brig'. Gen. Holmes, 
by Captain John Scott of Fauquier, of the operations of 
his squadron of cavalry at the first battle of Manassas. 
At the battle of the 2ist of July 1801 the extreme right 
of the Confederate Army was held by Brigadier General 
Holmes with a brigade of infantry, Lindsay Walker's 
l)atter3^ of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry. The 
last was composed of Captain Swann's Caroline company, 
with Captain Eugene Davis' Albemarle Light Horse, un- 
der the command of Cai)tain John Scott of Fauquier, the 
whole being quartered at Camxj Wigfall, or the Hooe 
plantation, in the rear of UnionMills onBullRun, making 
tlie right bank of the stream the Confederate line of 
l)attle. After the Federal General develoi:)ed that his 
plan was to assail Johnston's and Beauregard's left at 
Sudley Mills, leaving the right unmolested. Brigadier 
General Holmes marched his force towards the left wing- 
where the sound of cannon and musketry informed him 
that the fight had opened. By the order of march his 
cavalry w^as in the rear, but very soon he sent them to 
ihe front with orders to report to Beauregard at the 
Lewis House, where the command remained inactive un- 
til the Federal line was broken. AVhilst it was drift- 
ing along in the forward movement. Captain Scott re- 
X^orted anew to Gen. Holmes for orders, who told him 
"to i)ursue the enemy," Thena period of activity be- 
gan Avhich was not slackened until the battle closed, 
though Swann's gallant and regretted company was de- 
tached bv General Beanre<>:ard"s command "to guard 



22 
prisonei's/" lea\ jmia- Eugene Davis' Liglit Horse iiiisup- 
l)ortecl to obey General Holmes' command. After cross- 
ing Bull Run at Stone-Bridge the company encountered 
the P^'ederal Reserve from whicli the prisoners were ta- 
ken, spoken of in Gfeneral Holmes' Roj)ort, an easy cai)- 
ture, for the cartridge box of each prisoner Avas full, ex- 
cept the cartridge which Avas found in his musket. It 
was a little after the point on the tnrnpike was passed 
where the gallant Captain Radford lay mortally wound- 
ed that the Albemarle company was united with Colonel 
Kershaw's South Carolina brigade of infantry, the offi- 
cers of the respective commands agreeing in conjunction 
to pursue the enemy, then visible in the turnpike not far 
ahead. When theConfederates had reached the section of 
the turnpike where the fall of the ground towards Cub 
Run Bridge began the ^nir^iiit ceased, it being near sun- 
setting. The gallant Kemper, with his battery, was in the 
advance, occupying the crest of the hill and was engag- 
ed in an artillery duel with the enem}^ stationed near or 
across, Cub Run. Kershaw's brigade was in the imme- 
diate rear of thel)attery, with Eugene Davis' company 
of cavalry on its right tiank. To the rear of the exten- 
sion of the right iiank of the Albemarle men was posted 
another command of Confederate cavalry. 

At the termination of the artillery duel, but whilst 
things were in this attitude, an officer who proved to be 
Major Hill of Georgia, rode into the open space on the 
right making x^roclamation that he wanted a squadron of 
cavalry with which to capture the enemy's artiller3\ As- 
soon as the officer reached the front of the position, oc- 
cui)ied by the Albemarle Light Horse Captain Scott ad- 
vanced and said to him: '^I have not a squadron, but a 
company ready for the service." The officer readied 
that a company was sufficient. It was in answer to a 
question from Ca^jtain Scott *tliat Major Hill pointed 
across the turnpike as the direction which he desired 
the pursuit to take. To get clear of the soldiers, who 
occupied the road, it was necessary foT the command to 
pass to the front of the battery and there cross the turn- 
pike. But at some period before this had been done the 



23 
Albemarle men Imd been reei'iiited ])\^ two otlier adveii- 
tiiroiis spii'its. One was a Doctor from South Carolina 
Avlio had discovered that day that he had joined the 
wrong arm of the service: the other was Captain Wil- 
liam Fitzhugh Randolph, brother to Bishop Randolph 
of Virginia and of the family of the courageous and ac- 
complished Colonel Robert Randolph of Stnart's Caval- 
j-y. 

After the troopers had penetrated the open field, bnt 
a short distance, a Federal soldier was seen, making his 
way over tiie hills in the direction of Centreville. The 
(/olumn was halted and a trooper dispatched to capture 
the fugitive and bring him to the commander. Whilst 
this was being done the officer in command, advancing, 
put a revolver to the captive's head, saying: "Tell me 
the direction taken by your artillery/' The soldier 

replied "you are going in the wrong direction. The ar- 
tillery has gone do\f u the turnpike and is not far ahead." 
The prisoner was released, the column was reversed,and 
headed for a lower point on the turnpike. That attain- 
ed, its i:)ace was quickened to half speed. Captain Ran- 
dolph observing: "I suppose we are going to the Devil, 
but I Avill follow the White Havelock.'' The sound, from 
the armed heels of sixty horses on the hard road, might 
serve as notice, to the Federals at Cub Run Bridge, of 
the approach of the hostile l)idy and it soon aiDpeared 
that the notice had been received and had not been dis- 
]'egarded.The crossing below theBridge where the passage 
was widest, was a pack of commissary, quarter masters' 
and suttlers' w^agons from which, in the haste of depar- 
ture, the lead horses only, in some cases, had been car- 
rie:l off, leaving a, rich sp;^il to the captor, whilst Cub 
Run Bridge was occupied by a train of artillery. The 
cannoniers, with their attendants, had been more faith- 
ful to their charge than the wagon masters had x>i'^^^^<^^- 
They did not abandon their guns until the Confederates 
were upon them when they too disappeared in the cir 
cumjacent forest. It was reported to the commander 
that ten pieces of artillery, with their caisons, had been 
tnken nnd nmonii' them a gun whicli the Federals had 



24 
named "Long Tom" and from wliicli gi-eat results liad 
been ex^iected. 

The captnre, at once, was tnrned ovev to Captain Da- 
vis', and Captain Scott, Avitli fifteen volnnteers crossed 
Cnb Rnn, taking the Road to Centreville, to discovei* 
the Avhereabonts of the enemy, and the extent of the 
disaster that had befallen the Federal arms. Bnt the 
progress of the pnrsners, at^ first rapid, Avas slow, the 
men often breaking from the command to i>ursne and 
captnre fngitives from Cub Run Bridge whom they 
wonld despoil of their private arms and immediately 
liberate. Coming to ojien ground the Confederates dis- 
covered Federal infantry on a hill before them over 
which the road passed. These were rapidly charged 
and when reached, a demand of snrrender was made by 
the officer in command of the party, But instead of a 
surrender, the Federal officer gave the order "fire'' 
which was obeyed, it was estimated, by three hundred 
muskets. The little band of Confederates escaped de- 
struction by the accident of having heen halted on the 
tnrn of the hill where a rapid descent began. As it was, 
neither man nor horse was injured. It was qnire dark 
Avhen the volnnteers reached their command. Captain 
Scott proceeding to Cub Run Bridge where he met Col- 
onel Kershaw. Addressing Colonel Kershaw he express- 
ed the opinion that on account of the vicinity of the en- 
emy in force, the capture wonld not be safe from recaj^- 
ture, if left to the guard of cavalry alone, and proposed 
that two companies of his infantry should be l)ronghtto 
the Bridge, to act as an anxiliary force. Colonel Kershaw 
refnsed to consent to this proposal, but said, as Cai)tain 
Scott had mustered his regiments into tlie service at 
Richmond, and therefore Avas known to both officers and 
men, he Avas at liberty to enter his camp and induce two 
companies to perform the night's service. Cai)tain Scott 
at once, nnattended, repaired to Colonel KershaAv's reg- 
iments and Avithont difficulty, or delay brought back 
Avith him to the Bridge two of the gallant Carolina com- 
panies, from Avhicli their Colonel detailed pickets which 
]\i^ thi'PAV across Cub Run. Captain Scott then resumed 



25 
command of Captain Davis' company which he conduc- 
ted back to Plooe Plantation. Tlie next day as ordered 
by General Holmes, to whom he had made a verbal re- 
port, he submitted a Report in writing, j^repared in the 
great plantaton l)arn, by which he was sheltered from 
the falling rain, surrounded by his officers and men and 
wdth wdiom each part was canvassed before it Avas ad- 
mitted into the Report. It was dictated by Captain 
Scott to Willoughby Tebbs, an A. M. of the University 
of Virginia, then a private in the ranks, but avIio after- 
w^ards w^as eleeted to be an officer of the comi)any, a dis- 
tinction which he so well merited. He did not survive the 
war and w^as one of those priceless gems which the Uni- 
versity of A^irginia contributed, from her graduates, to 
to the army of Northern Virginia. After the battle the 
cavalry w^as thrown into regiments and Captain Scott was 
ordered to report to General Early for staff duty. From 
tlie Records of the war, in the captured archives, it aji- 
pears that his w^ritten Report to General Holmes Avas not 
sent, or at least was not received, with similar papers, to 
the Secretary of War and therefore all record of service 
of the squadron in the light was lost, but which it is hoped 
to substitute by this posti)oned, but imperfect, account. 
It is true that there is now a brief report, among the cap- 
tured records, in which Gen. Holmes mentions the con- 
siderable number, of prisoners and large amount of 
''propei'ty captured by "Scott's cavalry" but lie does not 
individualize the artillery, though when it is know^n 
tliat all the x^'operty, captured by the command in -the 
battle, was captured at the time when the ten guns were 
taken at Cub Run Bridge, as shown by the foregoing- 
narrative, the word employed by General Holmes was 
intended to include the artillery. Before the great bat- 
tle, and under the command of General Early, Captain 
Scott with two companies, Thornton's Prince William 
Cavalry and Davis' Albemarle Light Horse, had picket- 
ed the crossings of the Occoquan and certain landings 
of the Potomac. In iireparation for the approaching 
combat that command, with other outlaying forces, w^as 
ordered to Manassas to participate in the first great trial 
of arms l)etween the North and the South. 

JoHTs" Scott of Fauquh^^k. 



2i) 
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR; 

pope's campaign in VIRGINIA. 



"The Army of Virginia,*' amounting to about fifty or 
sixty thousand men commanded by Major General John 
Pox)e,was a coalition of the Corps of Fremont and Shields 
with the forces of Banks and McDowell . With this ar- 
mament it was the immediate purpose of Pope to occupy 
Gordonsville, with its to railroads, depriving Richmond 
of its connections with the central regions of Virginia, 
Avhilst it would enable him to co-operate with McClellan 
at Harrison's Landing, in his designs on the Capital of 
the Confederate States, the objective point of both ar- 
mies. To protect so important a point as Gordonsville, 
Jackson with his corps had besn ordered to that place 
which he reached on the 19th of July, and A. P. Hill's 
division was sent to him as soon as the Federal General 
had moved in the direction of Rapid Ann River. To 
attack Poi:)e as he lay at Culpeper Court House, which 
had been made a i^rincipal depot of army supjily. before 
McDowell, at Fredericksburg, had joined him, Jackson 
— with Ewell's division, A. P. Hill's division, and his 
own division, commanded by Brigadier General Winder, 
consisting of eighteen thousand effective men — marched 
upon that place, but, on the 9th of August whilst yet 
eight miles distant, encounterd his adversery and gain- 
ed the victory of Cedar Run, or Slaughter's Mountain, 
as the Field popularly is called. On the night of August 
nth he retired from the front of the enemy, camping 
again at Gordonsville, Avhere easily and certainly he 
,-()uld h(^ re-enforced so as to contend with his opponent 
after his entire force had collected. Longstreet liaving 
l)een ordered to Gordonsville, Lee about the middle of 
August proceeded to assume command of his reunited 
Army. At that juncture with a Battalion of cavalry 
just recruited and 'equipi)ed under the patronage of 
of General George AA^. Randolpli, Secretary ot* War, 
whose classmate I had l)een in the Law School at the 
University of A^irginia. I reported to General Lee in the 
held, who directed me to report to Jackson also in the 



iield, who ordered me to report to Ewell camped in the 
direction of Union Mills on the Rapid Ann river. The 
Battalion had been recruited in Richmond, become a 
C)ity of tlie Strangers, and naturally was formed of di- 
vorse material. My flag indeed was a token, an adver- 
tisement, an invitation, to all nnp]aced men w^ho desir- 
ed to have a hand in the war and they came to it from 
every direction. A conspicuons element was obtained 
from adventurers wdio had been Filibusters Avith Walk- 
er, "the Cxray-eyed man of destiny," and who had sought 
on the Isthmns to win with the sword a throne for their 
Leader. Some had been engaged in the Slave Trade on the 
African Coast, whilst others perhaps had been concern- 
ed in darker and more tragic scenes. To companies so 
constituted were addd comininds of Baltimore Roughs, 
a still wilder element, and commands from counties in 
A'irginia contiguous or neighboring to Richmond. It 
was a diversifled collection of the war, and a friend se- 
riously advised me that I could not with safety sleej^ in 
my ow^n camp. I told him that he did not understand 
the soldier and that I would sleep in absolute security 
in the midst of the most iingovernable spirits of my 
command. Tliere w^as a gentleman in the Battalion who 
merits and will receive a more particular description — 
the Adjutant General, Caj)tain D. Bnrr Reeve of Rich- 
mond and no officer was ever more perfectly suited to 
that important position. He was brave, cheerful and a 
Scotchman with an untiring attention to all the duties 
which appertained to his office. Intuitively, it seemed, 
lie knew every soldier in the command, intimately and 
perfectly, and by a kind of sorcery tanght them to re- 
spect and love him. It Avas to his i-emarkable capactity 
for business and that secret charm that the embodiment 
of the Battalion was to be attributed. He lives now in 
Henderson "as mild amannered nmn ns ever scuttle''ship 
or (;ut a throat,'' Lord Land)ro not more so. But the pic- 
ture of Captain Reeve would be incomplete without 
some account of Read, his headquarter' s man a strange 
creation, and united to the Adjutant by some mysterious 
and powerful sympathy. Read was an Irishman aud 
had been a waiV. driftwood tossed on the ocean. His 



28 
account of himself was tliat he had had no i^arents, and 
in childhood had been placed as cabin boy on a mer- 
chantman trading to Africa. Naturally he had come to 
be a sailor and from the merchant men had been trans- 
fered to the deck of the slaver from which respectable 
employment by some concatenation of events he was 
wafted into my battalion. He was very courageous and 
being an Irishmau was ready Avithout orwithpovocation 
to whip any soldier in the command and in censequence 
enjoyed their respect. Notwithstanding his pugnacity 
he show a disinclination to go into the fight and that 
perhaps was the reason of his being attached to head- 
quarters where he was acceptable for he was obedient, 
docile, affectionate and industrious. ''He had his way 
to make in the world" Read would say "and did not 
want by fooling with the Federals to have an arm or a 
leg shot off." One would infer from such a life as the 
young man had led that his moral sense had been dull- 
ed, or obliterated yet such was not the case, disproving 
the common theory of education, for he was honest, 
faithful to a trust and capable of devotion as his un 
shaken attachment to Captain Reeve proved. When the 
horses obtained on the Chambersburg raid were distrib- 
uted among the officers a very large and fine mule w^as 
sent to my camp and Avas naturally turned over to Read. 
By some chance Read was separated from the command 
and had not been heard of for a week. The susincion 
of desertion was very strong and the adjutant w^as often 
complimented on the fidelity of his Irishman. Suspi- 
cion had setteld into belief, when one fine morning Read 
and the mule, trotted into camp. There was an ovation 
and Captain Reeve was the happiest of men. Read's 
account of himself was that by some ill luck he had got- 
ten aAvay from camp,had been "pirouting" he admitted, 
and to escape capture had been obliged to lay low 'till 
the enemy moved. What has become of Read who can 
tell! Perhax^s he is now in Kentucky on the sunnyside 
of the house, in some trusted employment. 

Officers and men had been transferred to Charlottes- 
ville from which they were readily moved to the scene 
of action Avhich the presence of (Tenernl Pope hn<l pre- 



pai'ed, Avliose c<ainpnigiis against Lee and .laeksoii form 
so interesting a featni'e of the Civil war in A^irginia. At 
this period, wliilst riding tlirongli Uovdonsvillle, 1 (dian- 
red to meet with Doctor Mayo of Jackson's Staff and, 
althongh it was raining smartLy, w^e stopped to exchange 
civilties. Very soon Doctor Mayo informed me tluit the 
<lay ])erore (n* it may liave ])een that vei'y day, he had 
lieard tlie (ieneral say tliat lie wished to know where I 
was to ])e fonnd but that no one could give the desired 
information. Receiving direction as to the situation of 
(leneral Jackson's Head-Quarters I at once started to 
iind them and discovered without difficulty the object of 
my search. His tents were pitched on the edge of a 
wood with an open space in front in the farthest part of 
which blazed a bonfire, diffusing a comfortable w\armth. 
As soon as my horse was secured, and the General in- 
formed of my presence, I drew near the lire to dry my 
clothes and dispel the chilliness which the rain had pro- 
duced. It was not long before General Jackson joined 
me at the fire. His address Avas direct, yet courteous, 
and 1 hasrened to explain what Doctor Mayo had told 
me, adding that T was ready to execute any order he 
might give. He replied, "the occasion has passed.'' and 
expressed a polite regret that I should have turned out 
in such bad weather. I asked directly what the duty 
liad been on which he had w^ished to employ me, but 
again Avas told that "the occasion has passed" and there 
the matter rested. The General then remarked that he 
liad heard that my Battalion w-as badly discii^lined and 
])ioceeded to instruct me in the mode in which the men 
ought to be managed. I listened Avitli respect and, first 
thanking him for the lesson wdiich so kindly he had 
given me, took my leave of the Great Captain of whom 
all the world was talking. I was greatly pleased with my 
commander, but at the same time knew if my soldiers 
were subject to the rigid control prescribed or recom- 
mended that very soon the greater part w^ould desert me. 
So T continued my system of leaving to each Cai)tain the 
discipline of his company and by experience found that 
iny orders Avere o])eyed and, Avhen the time for action 
liad come, that the men Avere in place and acquitted 



til em selves as good soldiers wliicli I supposed was the 
object of the organization. How General Jackson had 
been informed of the ill discipline of my cavalry I could 
not divine but trusted that it was not from an incident 
that had occurred whilst my company were cam})ed at 
Charlottesville and his army was passing through that 
toAvn to reinforce Lee on the Chickahominy in his mem- 
orable struggle with McClellan for the j^^^^^ession of 
Richmond. Captain Taylor was a planter on the Lower 
Kapx3ahannock and a descendant of the still remembered 
and respected John Taylor of Caroline, a leading char- 
acter in Virginia at the period of the Report and Rev 
olution of '98 and '99 when Jefferson and Madison were 
engaged in laying the foundation of the Democratic Par- 
ty. He was the commandant of the military post of 
Charlottesville whilst my Battalion was camped in t!iat 
vicinity and the auxiliai-y Army of Jackson was 
marching through his jurisdiction. To enable him to 
enforce order, at so critical a time, he had requested to 
have one of my companies sent to him as an additional 
town-guard. Men were ordered to report to the Post 
Commandant who were supposed to be suitable, but who 
never before had ])een on the side of the law. Under 
the weight of so unusual a responsibility a man of the 
Battalion had deemed it fitting to kill one of Wheat's 
Louisiana Tigers, a part of Jackson's Army. The first 
I knew of the affair was a message from my man in jail. 
Getting the facts of the case from him which naturally 
placed all the blame on the dead Tiger, where perhaps it 
l)elonged, I called to see the Commandant and experi- 
enced no difficulty in getting my man released. But let 
it be said in ex])lanation that the times were urgent and 
doubtless Captain Taylor considered that even if the sol- 
diei' upon a trial were proved to have been in the wrong 
there was no good reason that because the Confederate 
Government had been deprived of one soldier it should 
therefore be called upon to lose the services of another. 
AVhilst at Manassas I had encountered General AVlieat 
in his own camp, surrounded with his Tigers acoutrod 
in their peculiar attire with falling red caps. Never had 
T been so iini)i'essed as I then was with his tall and hand- 



some i)ersoTi, gallant bearing and distinguished conrtesy 
and his conversation, abounding in eloquence and poetic 
sentiment, Avas as striking as his appearance. Plis eyes 
were dark and brilliant, his voice full and melodious, 
and as twilight fell npon that leader, surrounded by 
those rugged and martial Hgures, imagination pictured 
him as a hero of the Orient, a Conrad or a Lara. Wheat 
was the impersonation of the romantic adventurer, and 
his life had been replete with thrilling incident. He 
had been associated with Garribaldi in the struggle 
for Italian nationalit}" and now he was the daring and 
chivalrous kniglit equally ready to lay lance in rest for 
a Southern Republic or the smile of a favorite lady. — 
That heroic soldier, who rises before me in his strange 
beauty, was mortally wonnded in one of the battles 
around Richmond, but survived to direct his men tobn-. 
r}^ him where he had fallen. In that remembered and 
lamented grave the warrior slee^^s. now as a sacrifice to 
the honor and safety of Virginia. Shall he not have a 
place in tlie x>^ntheon of heroes;! 

I had seen General Ewell previous to the occasion 
when I reported to him for duty, and the circumstance 
was unusual that led to my acquaintance with that dis- 
tinguished officer. I had been employed at Richmond 
iu the routine of mustering volunteers from the cotton 
region into the military service of the Confederate States 
when I applied to Gen. Lee to have me sent to field ser- 
vice with the Army at Manassas, a reqnest with Avliich 
he obligingly complied. When I called to thank the 
General for the great favor which he had shown me he 
said: "Captain, you will be sent to General Ewell. — 
You will find him lying next to the enemy where he al- 
ways is. I request you to present my regards to Gen- 
eral Ewell. " Beauregard ordered me to take command 
of Captain Thornton's "Prince William Cavalry'' with 
"the Albemarle Light Horse" commanded by Cai)tain 
Eugene Davis, both gallant companies and destined to 
perform distinguished service in the war. The duty on 
which those companies were detailed under the com- 
mand of Captain Eugene Davis, the ranking officer, was 
to picket the crossings of Occoquon and the adjacent 



:52 
landings of the Potoinae. That squadron constilnted 
indeed a part of EwelTs command, yet I did not meet 
General Ewell nntil after the battle oX Manassas as, by 
the prerogative of Yiotor.y, the Field has been named 
by the gallant Beauregard, The meeting was acciden- 
tal, bnt dismonnting from my horse and approaching 
General Ewell, I introduced myself, delivering Genei'a I 
Lee's message in the woi'ds I have Avi'itten. My recep- 
tion was gracious as it continued to be whenever T ap- 
proached General Ewell. The first duty required of me 
was to pursue the eastern base of the Blue Ridge range 
of mountains as far as Madison to report upon the condi- 
tion of the country and enquire into an alleged disaffection 
to our Confedei'ate Government. If the report be found 
to be true I was instructed to arrest offenders and bring 
them to Head Quarteis. In due time I repoi'ted that the 
country was in the hands of the enemy, but that there 
was no disaffection to the Confederate States, the re- 
ported disloyalty originating in the fact that certain 
persons had been prevailed on to take an oath of alle- 
giance to the United States, expecting or hoping in that 
way to protect their property and h(»uses from destruc- 
tion or injury, but that no man's fidelity to the South 
had been shaken by the extorted oath. I was sent again 
to that mountain region to make a further and a contin- 
ued recognizance, reporting at discretion, and was so en- 
gaged when the Federal troops suddenly and mysteri- 
ously withdrew leaving the mountain tops where their 
signal stations had been erected, ^'Lookouts'' which had 
reudered the presence of small l^odies of our soldiei-s 
not free from danger. When the battalion had been on 
duty the first time in those localities a message had 
been sent from a Federal camp that a company of infan- 
try would come out from their quarters and surrender if 
the men were paroled and allowed to return to their 
homes. My men Avere greatly in favor of accepting the 
the proffered surrender, but suspecting a snare I paid no 
attention to it and continued to discharge the duty in 
respect to which I had ])een sent. So the imx)ortant les- 
son very early was learned to confide in my own opinion 
and not to be effected by the i^assing whiuis of the com- 



;J8 

mand upon whoiit the responsibility did not rest. The 
subject afterwards was mentioned to General Ewell who 
said that the decision was right. That I had been 
sent to get information useful to the Army and not to 
make prisoners or to tight, as I had supposed. To 
explain the sudden and silent evacuation of that sec- 
tion of country by General Pope it will be necessary 
to recur to the position of the opposing Armies and 
the cause which induced the change of situation. The 
information will enable us better to understand the 
precipitate abandonment of the trans-Rappahannock 
region by the Federal Army and the rapid course of 
events which resulted in the capture of the important 
military supply at Manassas Junction, which had 
been collected for the use of the Invading Army, the 
gallant but ineffectual attempt at recaj)ture by Tay- 
lor's New Jersey Brigade of Infantry and the subse- 
quent three days Second Battle of Manassas, the most 
sanguinary of the War of the Sections. 

When Lee arrived to resume command of the Army 
of Northern Virginia which had combated so victorious- 
ly at Chickahominy and Malvern Hill, he found Long- 
street in the neighborhood of Gordonsville and Jackson 
on the line of the Rapid Ann. Re-enforced by Burn- 
side, but not yet joined to McClellan, who from James 
River had been landed at Acquia Creek, Pope had his 
troops massed along the Alexandria railroad and beyond 
Ciilpeper Court House in the direction of the Rapid Ann 
and up the course of that river as far as Madison, as we 
have seen, with the intention of crossing its headwaters 
turning Jackson's left and seizing coveted Gordonsville. 
Penetrating the the design ofGeneralPope the able o^^m- 
strategy and unsleeping vigilance of Lee prej)ared aeov^'^ 
ter^stroke, unhappily defeated in the execution by the 
disobedience of subordinates, a provoking cause which 
lost tinally to the Confederate States a brilliant exis- 
tence, the object of the war icself. Under cover of the 
forest, whilst his adversary was indulging these pleas- 
ing visions the Confederate Commander like a crouch- 
ing lion conducted his Army to a position south of Clark's 
Mountain ten miles east of*^Orange Court House which 



commands the fords of Rapid Ann in that part of its 
conrse and exposed to his attack the rear of Pope' s Ar- 
my with its supply at Brandy Station as also the Bridge 
spanning the Rappahannock near that place. The 18th 
of August at daybreak was the time which Lee had cho- 
sen for this masterly rear attack, but the tardiness of 
certain of his subordinates, in completing the combi- 
nation, induced a postponement until the 20th, 
though Jackson notwithstanding the disappointment 
^^ advocated the attack as planned. Before the fateful 
X 20th day had arrived the opposing commander, through 
J the capture of a Confederate officer, who bore on his 
j person an official letter, discovered the toils prepared 
^ for him and hastily crossed the Rappahannock, placed 
that considerable stream, in his front as a breastwork 
^'^ which before as an obstacle had Uma in his rear. Under 
the new conditions the Federal left covered Rapimhan- 
nock station, now Remington, whilst the right extended 
up the river aoftw oind even above Warrenton Springs. 
The two Armies were placed on contrary sides of theRiv- 
er, until another stratagem of war, but now executed 
with entire success, empowered Lee to strike the ene- 
my's communication nearer to Washington City, neces- 
sitating the second Great Battle on the bloodstained 
Field of Manassafe. 

After Jackson's Corps had been moved to the south 
bank of the Rax)pahannock, confronting Pope, to enable 
me to rejoin Ewell it was necessary to conduct the Bat- 
talion through the intervening counties of Rappahan- 
nock and Culpeper. As soon as Little Washington was 
reached, the seat of justice of Rappahannock county, 
Mr. Miller, a gentleman residing in that place, accosted 
the officer in command of the Battalion with the infor- 
mation that Colonel Daniel Ullman of the Northern Army 
was confined to his house with an attack of typhoid fe- 
ver and desired very much that the officer won Id come to 
him, a request which at once was complied with. The 
invalid officer was found prostrated and in bed. After 
the two officers had been introduced by Mr. Miller Col- 
onel Ullman complained "that soldiers of Colonel Scott's 
command had carried off two of his horses, a field glass 



and,'' he added with evident regret, "a gokl watch 
which he prized as a gift from his mother, requesting to 
l^ave the property restored to him." The Confederate 
officer expressed sincere regret at the occurrence and as- 
sured Colonel ITllman that he would endeavor to recover 
the watch which would be returned to him as an act of 
justice and not at all for the live hundred dollars which 
had been offered as the price of its restitution. But the 
field-glass and horses, articles in war, must stand on 
their own ground. So saying he left the house but soon 
returned with the watch which was handed back to its 
owner. Colonel Scott then enquired of the sick gentle- 
man if he could serve him further? Colonel Ullman an- 
swered that he had another request to make, that a pa 
per signed by Colonel Scott should be given him declar- 
ing him to be a prisoner of war and extending its pro 
tection over property as well as person. When such an 
instrument in writing had been givenColonel Ullman ad- 
dedthat he had still another request to prefer, which was 
that as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to travel 
thatthe terms of the parole would enable him to return to 
Washington City there to remain until duly exchanged. 
This proposal Colonel Scott answered could not be com- 
plied with, he regretted to say. The power to parole 
prisoners in the Field had been prohibited by the Sec- 
retary of War because of the spoliation of citizens under 
General Pope's order, contrary to the law and usage of 
civilized warfare, and that if Colonel Ullman thought 
the refusal hard he must thank General Pope for it. The 
invalid officer insisted that he ought not to be held re- 
sponsible for the order of Pope as at the period of its 
issuance he was in the Valley with Banks. It was re- 
plied that the order of the Secretary admitted no excep- 
tion, ''besides Colonel you are here now and the offen- 
sive order has not been rescinded." Colonel Ullman 
then pleasantly taking a volume, which laid beside him 
and which Mr. Miller had sent him to relieve the tedium 
of the sick bed, ''The Lost Principle of the Federal 
Government" said if you will argue my side of the 
question as you argue here I think you will agree 
for me to o-o to Washinsrton." Colonel Scott thought 



8(5 
not and settled the matter saying: ''When you are suf- 
liciently recovered to travel Colonel you must report to 
the Commandant at Richmond when my authority Avill 
end," an instruction with which Colonel Ullman ,*om- 
plied. Colonel Scott then rose and extended his hand 
which ColonelUllman took and retained saying: "Though 
you cannot grant a parole allowing me to return to 
Washington you can at least give me this promise: This 
game of war has two sides and you may chance to find 
yourelf a prisoner to our Army. Promise if such 
should be the case that from the place of your detention 
you Avill write to me a letter addressed to the care of 
the Secretary of War. Then I will come to you and 
Avill have influence to have you committed to my custo- 
dy, Avhen I will take you to New York where you will 
have a good time. The promise laughingly was given 
and the officers parted in such kindness as may exist be- 
tween technical enemies. When in New York City af- 
ter the war of the Sections was terminated Colonel Scott 
enquired for General Daniel Ullman and learned that 
he resided in Albany. So the officers did not meet after 
the parting at the sick bed in Little Washington and 
cannot now meet until the great Reunion in the Elysian 
Fields where both uniforms are discarded and the same 
bright vestments are worn. 

On the 24th day of August General Pope endeavoured 
to obtain possesion of Waterloo Bridge over Carter's 
Run near the junction of that stream with Rappahan- 
nock River on the north side, four miles higher up than 
the Warrenton Springs. This effort was resisted with 
gallantry and success by General Fitzhugh Lee, the fight 
extending throngh several hours of that daj^ My Bat- 
talion defended the crossing at Hart's Mill, which was 
not seriously attacked, midway between the Warrenton 
Spjings and Waterloo, and from the high position of 
the Armstrong House were plainly seen the considerable 
reenforcements which from time to time were sent to 
Federal combatants and which, as requested, were duly 
rejjorted to General Fitzhugh Lee at Waterloo Bridge. 
The fight at Waterloo Bridge has escaped the attention 
of history, yet does it deserve mention not only for the 



:I7 
bravery and conduct displayed in its defense bnt for 
tlie importance of the victory to Lee's Strategy, for if 
the Bridge of Waterloo had been lost Jackson could 
not have crossed at Hinson's ford in the early morning of 
the next day without the knowledge of the enemy. So 
the victory of General Fitzhugh Lee at Waterloo Bridge 
Avas a condition of the succeeding great victory of his 
Uncle at Second Manassas, and deserves to be regarded 
as the first act in that drama of war. The next day, 
the 2oth of August, Jackson began his celebrated march 
to Pope's rear at Bristoe Station and Manassas Junc- 
tion, localities four miles apart on the Alexandria rail- 
road, "the most adventurous and brilliant of all his ex- 
Xdoits'' — the able and learned Doctor Dabney thinks — 
leaving Longstreet, across the Rappahannock, to enter- 
tain Pope with the music of artillery. At an early hour, 
whilst ths morning dew was on the leaf, the left wing 
of the Army of Northern Virginia, near the villaa-e of 
Jeifersonton, forded the Rappahann ;ck at Hinson's Mill. 
The march was through the western division of Fauquier 
county and in part through Prospect Hill plantation, an 
estate of Mrs. Eliza Marshall, carefully avoiding at that 
l^oint, under cover of the forest, observation from the 
Federal signal station on the crest of Watery mountain, 
looking down on the town of Warrenton lying at its 
southern base. That x^rominent point afforded an ex- 
tensive range of vision and the prudence of Jackson had 
stationed an officer to prevent any part of the Army from 
showing itself on the highway which connected Orlean 
nnd Warrenton. That night the army lay along the road 
between Orlean and Salem in darkness. Not a light was 
to be seen so implicitly obeyed were Jacksons orders by 
volunteers recently recruited from civil life. That alone 
was an augury of victory. With his Staff Jackson pass- 
ed the night at the residence of Mr. James William Fos- 
ter who possessed an accurate knowledge of the country 
through which the Army was passing, intelligence, en- 
Huence and culture. The next day the Army marched 
through Thoroughfare Gap, a pass of the Bull Run range 
of mountains, and at the close of the day reached Bristoe 
Station one of its objective points. 



At Gainesville, on the Manassa's branch ot the railroad, 
the Army enconntered Stuart, who, by a skilful dispo- 
sition of his cavalry contributed to the continued secrecy 
of the march. The important point was the cax)ture of 
Manassas Junction which Jackson determined to effect 
at once to anticipate the destruction of its hoarded sup- 
ply by the enemy. Gallant General Trimble, with the 
twenty-first Georgia regiment and the tAventy-first North 
Carolina volunteered for ihe night's adventure, whilst 
Major General Stuart with a portion of his cavalry com- 
manded the expeditionary force. The garrison was sur- 
prised, the fortified depot was captured with three hun- 
dred prisoners, eight held x^it^ces, three hundred and fif- 
ty horses and the immense sui)ply collected for the in- 
vading Army, bacon, beef, flour, indeed everything which 
hungry and tired soldiers wanted, to Avhich Avas added a 
proportionate amount of ammunition. ''The confessions 
of Pope show that the loss of these stores were a chief 
element of his su])sequent disaster. It discouraged and 
intimidated his men and compelled them to enter the 
arduous struggle of three bloody days without adequate 
rations or ammunition.'' Dabney. 

The 27th of August General Hal leek, from Washing- 
ton, ordered a New Jersey l)rigade of infantry, proceed- 
ing from the direction of Alexandria, and gallantly com- 
manded by Brigadier General Taylor, to recapture Ma- 
nassas and so to restore Pope's communication interrupt- 
ed, he supposed, by one of Stuart's cavalry raids. The 
Brigade advanced from the direction of the railroad in 
superb order and with the greatest intrepidity to retake 
the stronghold, when the guns of the captured fort Avere 
turned on them and at the same time their left flank, 
Avitli deadly aim, Avas assailed by Braxton's Battery. 
Their ranks Avere torn in front and flank, yet those sol- 
diers nothing daunted marched foi'ward to storm the 
Avorks. Suddenly they halted reversed the direction of 
their march and began a retreat but Avitli the discipline 
and courage that had distinguished their advance until 
they regained the railroad and were lost to vieAV. The 
explanation giA'en at the time of th^ retreat Avas that 



89 
General Taylor had discovered that it was with Jackson's 
infantry and not Stnart's cavalry that he would have to 
contend and therefoi'e had relinquished the enterju'ise. 
General Pitzhugh Lee with a command of cavalry hj a 
circuitous route proceeded to intercept Taylor's infantry 
at a further point on the railroad and my Battalion ac- 
companied the march. The Brigade was overtaken but 
was so strongly posted in a wood near the railroad as to 
render fruitless any attempt to dislodge them with cav- 
alry. 

STUART'S mCURSTON INTO PENNSYLA'ANIA. 

THE CTIAMBERSBUKG KAID, 

Of the exploits and achievements of Lieutenant Gen- 
eral J. E. B. Stuart, Commander of the Cavalry Corps 
attached to the Army of Northern Virginia, his raid to 
Chambersburg in Pennsylvania deserves to be known 
and remembered. My acquaintance with Stuart was 
very slight, only nominal, excex)t as an officer of his 
command, but that was quite enough to enable me to es- 
timate hishigh military qualities. McClellan's formidable 
Army of invasion-two hundred thousand strong as report- 
ed — lay at Harper's Perry, the north gate letting into Vir- 
ginia, wdien the expedition started from the vicinity of 
the Dandridge House, in the spacious park of which the 
Cavalry Head quarter tents were pitched. Upon Gener- 
al AVilliam H. Pitzhugh Lee devolved the duty of organ- 
izing the raiding force, which consisted of details taken 
from the various commands which constitute! the cav- 
alry corps, and amounted to sixteen squadrons accom- 
panied l)y Hampton's Horse Artillery directed by that 
I'edoubtable warrior. The squadron to which the quota 
from Scott's Battalion of horse was assi^-ned was com- 
manded by Colonel John Scott of Pauquier. The name 
of the commanders of the other squadrons were not 
learned nor was it necessarj^ to know them as the com- 
bination was sudden and temporary, lasting only and 
dm-ing the brief term of that particular service. It was 
from the standpoint of Colonel Scott's squadron ihat the 
facts were derived which compose this detached chapter 
of military history, and explains why no other squadron 



40 
particularly is named. The fifteen other squadrons 
formed indeed the body of Stuart's command and were 
of course its effective operative force. The expedition 
passed into the State of Maryland by a blind and rocky 
ford of Potomac river above Harper's Ferry, with Cham- 
bersburg for its objective iDoint, and the intention after 
a Hying visit to Emmettsburg, to return to Virginia, re- 
crossing the Potomac below Hari)er's Ferry, thus com- 
pleting the circle to be drawn around McClellan, as if to 
serve as a harbinger of the disaster which awaited that 
proud Army at Fredericksburg — an adventure daring in 
conceiition, difficult in execution. A result, if not an ob- 
ject, of the inroad into Pennsylvania was a drove of hor- 
ses, taken from the farmers and others who should have 
the ill luck to ])e found on our line of march. As soon 
as the phj'sical barrier was surmounted that separated 
the Twin-sisters, Maryland and Virginia, an order was 
X>romulgated that i)rivate prox)erty should be respect- 
ed, particularly in Maryland, deemed friendly territory, 
though in Trans-Potomac, on account of the contingent of 
heroic soldiers which that gallant State maintained in the 
Army of Northern Virginia throughout the bloody war of 
the Sections. To this order from Head Quarters a supple- 
mental order was added, but proceeding from our spe- 
cial squadron commander: "that no officer or soldier 
should leave the squadron without his personal permis- 
sion," but disobeyed in a single instance. Lieut. H. was 
a fine soldier and a fine fellow, but slightly addicted to 
"X>ii'outing. " After the Squadrons had jiassed the 
Pennsylvania confine, the Lieutenant, without leave, 
gallox:)ed away to a farm-house l"o get, it is probal^le, a 
slice of Pennsylvania bread spread with ax)ple-butter, a 
delicacy x^rovided by the hospitable farmer ax)parently 
for this unique occasion. Instantly a man was sent for 
the Lieutenant, who, as soon as he rex'orted, was direct- 
ed to consider himself under arrest and to ride until 
nightfall at the rear of the Squadron, an act of discix")- 
line which rendered the men better satisfied with the se- 
vere curl) which restrained them. Our squadron did 
not quite reach Chaniberslnu'g. It was halted outside of 
the city to allow the rear pickets more conveniently to 



41 
be established and visited, not an agreeable duty because 
of the peltings of a pitiless rain storm. But the month 
was October. The fields contained their crops of har- 
vested Indian corn whilst the winter's supply of wood 
having been provided by farmer and houskeeper the 
bivouac blazed brightly. A romanti,*, incident — a rose 
gathered by the wayside — occured the next morning as 
the Squadron proceeded along a street of the town. The 
ground story, let it be explained, of each of the houses 
that lined the street was used as a store, whilst the story 
above was dedicated to the family, with windows letting 
down to the floor. At one of these open windows was 
seated a lady richly and fashionably habited, gazing 
curiously at the surprising spectacle of a command of 
Confederate soldiers marching quietly along those loyal 
streets, and as beautiful as if she were girdled with 
Cytharea's own cestus. With the homage which a sol- 
dier offers at all times to the shrine of beauty our com- 
mander uncovered bowing to the saddle bow. With a 
superior grace and mein, as Juno from her throne, the 
beautiful lady rising accepted the soldier's courtesy. The 
men attracted by the pantomime, and struck with her 
superb and elegant look raised a great shout, exclaim- 
ing: '^She's Secesh, She's Secesh"! The lady had a 
good nerve and held her x>osition notwithstanding 
the sudden, but it is hoped, not unfounded claim of ti- 
tle, until the cavalcade passed out of view, losing to us 
a vision which no man sees but once, and which abides 
in the memory as a sweet song. Had we have had a 
Paris we might have carried off the beauteous Helen, 
producing another war of old Troy, but having a justifi- 
cation far better than the one which brought us to Cham- 
bersburg. When the raiders reached Emmettsburg their 
reception was chilling enough, the men of the town 
standing ranged along the street as cold, as silent, as 
motionless as statues. But when the presence of South- 
ern soldiers in the town became known the ladies, who 
are the true heroes of the war, uncaring consequences, 
greeted them with handerchiefs waving from every door, 
window and balcony, to assure the adventurous band 
that thev were a2:ain on Southern soil and among hearts 



43 
that beat responsive to their own for a great cause. Grain 
in the advance having been provided by our leader, who 
forgot nothing, late in the day the column was hatled 
that no time might be lost from the march except what 
was necessary to allow the animals to consume their prov 
ender. Indeed there was good reason for circumspec- 
tion and diligence. For from every mountain top and 
hill top videttes were seen to report our progress and, 
with an allnight's march before us, there was strong prob- 
ability of having to reckon with McClellan before "the 
gentle day dappled the drowsy east with spots of gray." 
During that long and weary midnight march soldiers 
through sleep and fatigue, were seen to drop from their 
saddles a sight never witnessed before. Ahead and not 
far from our route, stood Poolesville on our right at 
which was stationed a force of the enemy — ten thousand 
strong we heard— to waylay the march, or anticipate its 
arrival at the river. When we reached the road turning 
off to Poolesville, Captain White a gallant young gen- 
tleman, brother to General Elijah White of Loudoun 
County the famed cavalry leader, with a command pos- 
ted in front, struck off into the Poolesville road as 
though Poolesville had been the object of Stuart's attack, 
excellent strategy, it proved, and the hinge upon which 
the success of the enterprize turned as later will appear. 
Weariness and drowsiness vanished in the presence of 
danger and the squadrons again were on the alert ready 
for the combat. After drawing closer to the river the 
command was halted to allow Genejal Stuart to acquire 
information from the front. Soon there was brought the 
unwelcome tidings, that a force of Federal cavalry barr- 
ed all access to the uyjper ford of White's Crossing, to- 
wards which apparently the'command was then moving. 
I watched our commander very closely, for he was not 
far off, that I might discover the effect of the intelli- 
gence upon that steady eye and bronzed cheek. 
His composure was undisturbed, Stuart only remarking: 
"We'll give them the artillery and then they'll skedad- 
dle," with these words galloping off as light-hearted as 
though he were going to a dance. But not so Avith those 
of our men who had heard the report as delivered to 



43 
Stuart. They said one to another: ''we are caught. 
Stuart has made one raid too many. Every man now 
must look out for himself." But Colonel Scott, close at 
hand, answered the murmurers: "No! We will stick to 
Stuart, he will take us over the river." His authority 
restored confidence and the disaffection was arrested. 
Why the enemy's cavalry were not attacked, as propos- 
ed, I do not know. But I do know that instead we were 
conducted to the lower ford of White's Crossing, in the 
vicinity of which we were delayed doubtless to enable 
our commander to ascertain that there was a regiment of 
infantry posted in the bluff, commanding the lower ford. 
With the true instinct and nerve of a soldier, and the 
promptness and energy of Stonewall Jackson, Stuart 
attacked the regiment with a force of dismounted men. 
Twenty five of these were contributed from our squad- 
ron and were placed under the command of Captain 
James Pierce Bayly of Fauquier an officer of known gal- 
lantry, and of the stock of General Turner Ashby, "the 
bravest of the brave." It was favour shown by Colonel 
Scott to Captain Bayly, as a countyman who was sent 
instead of a lieutenant, as called for, as, in those event- 
ful, stormy days, Fauquier was not entirely satisfied un- 
less she had a hand in every fray. The position was 
handsomely carried. Stuart immediately ordered Col- 
onel Scott to take direction of the crossing of the river 
by the command, adding: "Divide your squadron into 
three parts. One keep at the entrance of the stream, to 
prevent crowding there. Another have in the river to 
force the men through it as soon as they strike water. 
Do not allow a man to stop even to water his horse. 
Force the men into the river, through the river and out 
of the river. The third part of your men station on the 
Virginia shore to prevent crowding at the point of exit. 
Do not suffer any command to halt on the Virginia side 
until the highlands are attained." The men and officers 
of the squadron entered heartily and vigorously into the 
work, under the direction of the officer charged with the 
duty. When the Horse Artillery came to the water's 
edge it was hurried through and over the river as de- 
scribed, but, when it encountered the Virginia bank, it 



44 
was discovered that the horses had not the ability to 
draw after them caisson or gun, but, with difficulty, 
could crawl, or scuffle up the steep. As soon as this ob- 
stacle was presented the men attached to the artillery 
sprang into the water, and seizing the wheels, d/ovegun 
and caisson upon level ground, so that Stuart had the 
satisfaction of having his whole command, in good time, 
in Virginia. The squadron at once collected its disjoint- 
ed parts and was about to follow the trail across the bot 
tom when Lieutenant Hebb,a Maryland man and an officer 
of the Battalion, who had a quick, discerning eye, call- 
ed attention to the fact that the enemy's artillery alrea- 
dy were in the position evacuated by Hampton's guns, 
and would shell the command as it crossed the flat, in- 
deed as soon as it left the cover of the heavy growth that 
fringed the river. This compelled a detour which 
brought us to the highlands where there was provided 
food for man and beast, and there we found Stuart in 
the midst of his soldiers, a martial figure. Thus were 
Hampton's battery aud the squadrons very speedily 
hurled over the river! The command camped for the 
night a short distance out from the Virginia city of 
Leesburg. Taking with him Lieutenant Hebb, Colonel 
Scott spent the night in Leesburg under the hospitable 
roof of Honorable John Janney, one of the first lawyers 
and public men of Virginia, and late the President of 
the Secession Convention. Mr. Janney, among other 
topics, entertained his guests with a particular account 
of the collision of the Confederate military, commanded 
by General Evans, with the civil functionaries in Lees- 
burg. He felt acutely the rude contact and said bitter- 
ly: "How I wished for Judge Scott in his best day to 
sustain the authority and dignity of the civil law." — 
Passing through Berry ville [Battletown of the colony 
era,] the squadrons were conducted back to the quar- 
ters they had left. On the homeward march, as we 
skirted the Infantry camps of the Army of Northern 
Virginia, the soldiers collected on the sides of the roads 
and greeted Stuart with rousing cheek's for the suceess 
of his daring enterprize around McClellan's Army, twice 
crossing the great Potomac. I owe a further duty to 



45 
Stuart, who tliougli called away to the Xew Life, still is 
with us in the undying page of history. If by troops 
sent from Harper's Ferry or Poolesville he had been de- 
feated in recrossing the river at AVhite's Crossing, or at 
any other passway below Har^^er s Ferry, he would have 
relinquished, as ini2:)racticable, the design of returning 
to Lee by that ronte and striking out westward, through 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, subsisting on the country, 
fighting when necessary, woiild have crossed the river bar- 
rier into Virginia nearer its head springs, so as to be 
still the lion iu McClellan's path as soon as he moved 
southward. So the invasion of Pennsylvania was as sa- 
gacious in conception as in execution it was bold and 
successful. "Fortune favors the brave" is a maxim of 
war from old Rome, and with his good sword Stuart w^as 
ever ready to seize the opj)ortunities and accept the 
challeno'es of war. 

After the return to cavalry head-quarters Stuart in 
strong terms expressed his approbation of the uncom- 
promising discipline that had been maintained through- 
out the raid in Colonel Scott's squadron. It is recorded 
here because the praise was deserved and belongs to the 
men w^ho co-operated so efficiently and cheerfully in at- 
taining that result. Let it stand as a j^recedent that 
indulgent treatment in camp maybe compatible, among 
volunteers at least, with effective service and strict dis- 
cipline in the field. It was during the Federal advance 
through Loudoun county that 3^oung Captain Bullock of 
]\Iissouri, the gallant and distinguished Chief of the 
Sharp-shooters of the Cavalry Corps, called at head- 
(^uarters to thank Colonel Scott, in the presence of the 
men, for sending such fine soldiers for his work. He 
found the Battalion in the woods, as a camp of Indian 
l)i'aves on the war path; there was neither baggage nor 
tenr — onlv horses and arms. 



40 • 
STUART'S REGIMENT OF EIGHT MEN. 



Waerextox, A'a., Jany, 30tli, 1896. 
Ma J, Norman V. Randolph, Richmond, Ya. 

Dear Sik: A pressure of business must jjleadmy ex- 
cuse for not returning an answer sooner to your letter, 
requesting from me a certificate of the period during 
wliicli you were with my Cavalry Battalion in the War 
of the Sections and referring particularly to a skirmish 
with Federal Cavalry, at Markham, in which you were 
the only man with me, when I left the ground on which 
it had occured. As it was thought by Stuart, to whom 
it was reported b}" one of his Aids, who had witnessed 
it, to have been a creditable affair, I will, I suppose, best 
attain the object of your communication ])y writing a 
sketch of it, as far as the particulars can be recalled. 

The Cavalry Corps was falling back before McClellan's 
great Army of Invasion, which started from Harper's 
Ferry, delaying its march by unceasing combats with its 
advance, to give Lee, then in the Lower Valley, time to 
throw his army between Richmond and the invading 
force. It was whilst this was being done that the Cav- 
alry, with which my command was connected, was at 
Markham in the County of Fauquier. Its place in the 
Cavalry Corx)s was as an attachment to the Fifth Regi- 
ment, commanded by the gallant and accomplished Col. 
Tom. Rosser. When the march of the Fifth began for 
Barbee's Cross Roads, now^ Hume, all the men of the 
Battalion, which were bringing up the rear of the Regi- 
ment, had been drafted for that day to act as sharpshoot- 
ers under brave Capt. Bullock, excepting eight men un- 
der my ow^n command. The march had proceeded but a 
short distance from that part of the highway in front of 
Colonel Stribling's residence, when a body of Federal 
sharpshooters issued from the w^ood on our left and at- 
tacked the Regiment. Major Beverly Douglas, so well 
and so honorably known in Virginia, at the moment was 
in command. Very successfully and quickly he charged 
the assailants and drove them back into the woods. One 
of my men, an Irishman by the name of Keegan, was 
about to follow the enemv into his covert, where he would 



47 
have been busliwliacked, but I called him to return to 
me, as Major Douglas only proposed to drive the as 
sailants off. That, of course, was Major Douglas' affair, 
though the Battalion was fully engaged in it. It was 
claimed that the charge, had saved one of Stuart's bat- 
teries from capture. At least Major Douglas, who was 
always a very gallant officer, claimed that as a result of 
the charge, and doubtless it w^as so. We had scarcely 
regained the road, and resumed the order of march, when 
the regiment was assailed in the rear by a body of Cav- 
alry, coming from Markham, now in possession of the 
Federals. Our pistols all had been emptied in the recent 
skirmish (I think I had one shot left) when the new at 
tack was made. 

But, without orders, except from the urgency of the 
occasion, the two sets of fours, Avith their sabres drawn, 
turned on tneir assailants and forced them back intoMark- 
ham on their reserves. But here another difficulty was de- 
veloped which threatened to annul the value of the suc- 
cessful charge. When the men on their return mounted 
the hill, down which they had just driven the Federal Cav- 
alry, it was discovered that the road in their front was 
occux)ied by the sharpshooters, whom Major Douglas, so 
recently, had rex)ulsed. There was a stone fence too, on 
the right side of the road, next to the Blue Ridge, whilst 
the other side of it was effectually guarded by the advan- 
cing troops of McClellan. Here was a dilemma. It was 
soon relieved however by one of the men, who discovered 
a gap in the fence, through which the command retreat- 
ed, leaving the commander alone with Norman V. Ran- 
dolph, but the two speedily followed the men. As soon 
as they saw their Commander the men gathered around 
him again and discovered that his horse had been wound- 
ed on one of his legs and was bleeding freely. When 
the Command had reached the top of the elevation across 
the road, and in front of Colonel Stribling's house, the 
late Hon. Barnes Kerrick, Benjamin Figgins and others 
of the locality were recognized. From Mr. Kerrick di- 
rections were*^ obtained as to the route among the hills 
which would enable us to return to Stuart. As we were 
descendino' the decline of thf- elevation, which looked 



4cS • 
Avest-ward, toward the Blue R,idge, our leader saw on 
tlie ox^posite elevation, or liill, only separated by a 
narrow strip of valley, a body of Confederate Cavalry, 
apparently witliont an officer. He sent Norman Y. Ran 
dolpli to them with an order to report to him in the val- 
ley below, very pronii3tly, which they did. What am- 
nnmition there was among the men was distributed, and 
thus reinforced and prepared, the Com nand was ready 
for business again and none too soon, for descending the 
elevation, over which the Confederates had just i3assed 
a detachment of the Federal sharpshooters was seen in 
pursuit, expecting to kill or capture the original party 
of eight. But when they saw instead thirty or more of 
Stuart's Cavalry in line to receive them, whose metal, 
so recently they had tried, they relinquished the pursuit 
and returned to their friends. The wounded animal, as 
an honored guest, was left at Mr. DeButt's residence in 
charge of the patriotic ''Secesli'' ladies of the family, 
and, after receiving the abundant and cordial hosxntality 
of Mr. Henry M. Marshall for the night, the Command 
united with Stuart at the Cross Roads, w^here, fortunate- 
ly, the leader had a spare horse in his camp. Stuart was 
greatly pleased when informed of tlie affair by his Aide 
de Camp, and proudly called those soldiers ''his Regi- 
ment of eight men.'' I have not the dates but can say, 
generally, that, from its organization to the time when 
i left it, you were with me, though then but a boy of 
fifteen years, I have given the affair at Markham with 
some detail because it was but an example of the hourly 
combats by which our great Cavalry Commander delayed 
the Federal march, so that Lee could imterpose his de- 
voted army, as a shield, once more between the invader 
and Richmond. 

A word about myself. As soon as I reported to Clen- 
erals Holmes and Cabell, in the Trans-Mississippi De- 
partment, my rank was I'aised to Colonel of Cavalry to 
enable me to take command of an impcu'tant outpost, 
across Arkansas River, relieving a Lieutenant Colonel. 

I hope this loose memorandum will answer your |)ui'- 
pose. It will at least ennble yoi'. as the memories of 
the great war gi'ow dim, to recall our double skii'misli 



4f) 
at Markham, and the charge of '*Stuart\s Reoiment of 
eight men," one of whom you Avere. 
Your obedient servant and friend, 

Jonx Scott of Fauquier, 
Colonel of Cavalry, Confederate States' Army. 

Addendum: — The foregoing sketch was shown to a 
soldier of my battalion, who, being along in the scenes, 
which it describes, reminds me of some forgotten par- 
ticulars. It was a squadron of the 11th Pennsylvania 
Cavalry, which we [the Fifth and my eight men] drove 
through Colonel Stribling's barnyard, which was adjoin- 
ing the county road. In jumping the bars of the enclo- 
sure Major Douglas' horse blundered and fell, throwing 
its rider, and escaped in the direction of the Federal 
Cavalry, But the activity and courage of Norman Y. 
Randolph, who was at my side, recovered the animal, 
though exposed to a heavy fire from the sharpshooters. 
The Federal cavalry attacked our rear but were repelled 
by a counter-charire, ju-e venting the capture of a Louisi- 
ana battery which, at the time, was in the barnyard. I 
have been reminded, too, that the Captain of the battery 
thanked me for the service rendered him, but T was on- 
ly an officer acting under the direction and employing 
the troops of Major Douglas, who Avas present. 

John Scott of Fauquiek, 
Colonel of Cavalry Confederate States Army. 



AGAIN BETWEEN THE INVADER AND RICH- 
MOND; A FALSE IMPRISONMENT AND 
WHAT CAME OF IT; A GLANCE 
AT THE BATTLE OF FRED- 
ERICKSBURG. 

McClellan's progress through Loudoun and Fauquier 
Counties from his camp at Harper's Ferry, though mov- 
ing on shorter lines, was so delayed and halted by Stu- 
art as to enable Lee in the Lower Valley to conduct the 
Army of Northern Virginia through Chester's Gap in 
the Blue Ridge into Eastern Virginia and project it, at 
Culpeper Court House, between the enemy and the Cap- 
ital of the Confederate States. The invading Army lay 



50 * 
at Warrenton, twenty miles away, but with its outposts 
thrown forward over the Rappahannock, or Hedgman's 
river, as at first that considerable watercourse was call- 
ed in that section of it, and pushed as far as Hazel, a 
confluent of the Rappahannock, which, with the supe- 
rior stream, forms the Little Fork of Culpeper county. 
The Cavalry Cor23S was camped at Rixeyville where the 
highw^ay, connecting Culpeper Court House and War- 
renton, crossed Hazel. As the Federal Army was pick- 
eting the left bank of Hazel it was expedient, or neces- 
sary for the Confederates to picket the opposing right 
bauk. In the round of that duty General Rosser direct- 
ed Colonel Scott taking the Fifth Regiment and his own 
battalion of Cavalry, to relieve the picket on Hazel. In 
parting Colonel Scott asked: "How much discretion do 
you allow me, General^' ''As much as you choose to 
exercise, only keep up the picket line," was the reply 
for General Rosser was indulgent, or rather reasonable, 
in such matters, which rendered him a favorite with his 
officers w^hilst it infused a spirit of enterx)rize into his 
command As soon as the relief was established Colo- 
nel Scott with a scout of cavalrj^ determined to cross 
into Little Fork to discover the conditions there. He 
enquired for a guide acquainted with the country and 
suitable in other respe^^ts. His informant answered: "The 
best guide in Culpeper, Parson Aldridge Grimsley, lives 
right here, on the yon side of Hazel. You will 
have to ride to rhe middle of the river and from there 
confer with him standing in his own house.'' This was 
done and the Reverend gentleman readily agreed to act 
as guide to the proposed scout in the Little Fork. Mr. 
Grimsley possessed a striking personality and, it was 
evident, that he was of "The Chur/h Militant,'' as well 
as a pious, eloquent divine. Aftei' some time spent, in 
an ineffectual ride, the scout arrived at the residence of 

Mr. M an intelligent farmer, who had recently 

returned home. He said in explanation of his absence 
tliat he had been arrested on his own land by the Fed- 
erals who had carried him to Warrenton where, after a 
detention or several days, he had been set at liberty, but 
not until an oath was exacted not to disclose anv fact 



51 
that he had acquired during his captivitj', ^'and yet'' 

continued Mr. M ''I gathered some particulars, 

Avhilst a prisoner, which General Lee ought to know but 

theoath forbids me to speak." Mr. M was then 

interrogated as to whether he had been in the Confeder- 
ate Army, or, in any other way, had been in the milita- 
ry service of the Confederacy^ "No, no not at all," he 
said. "Up to the period of my arrest I had been exclu- 
sively occupied with looking after my farm and family, 
as now I am." "This renders you a "Noncombatant in 
Avar and as a noncombatanf' said Colonel Scott "you 
w^ere exempted by the law^s of civilized warfare from 
molestation in any way by the enemy. Your arrest and 
detention were illegal. You were entitled to liberty 
freed from any condition. Your oath is a nullity be- 
cause extorted by an illegal imprisonment. It is your 
duty to the Confederate States to tell me all that you 

know that, I may send it to General Lee." Mr.M 

then said: "Burnside, instead of McClellan, has been 
placed in command of the Northern Army and is march- 
ing towards Fredericksburg," The evacuation of the Lit- 
tle Pork and the withdrawal of the pickets from Hazel 
were accounted for, and so the scout was terminated. 
The important information was sent by couriers, pursu- 
ing different routes, to cavalry headquarters and from 
thence speedily was transmitted to Lee. Soon the high- 
lands about theMaryeHouse were possessed by theArmy 
of Northern Virginia along with the system of hills ex- 
tending south to Hamilton's Crossing, while Burnside 
held Fredericksburg and, by maans of Coalter's Bridge 
occupied Stafford Heights, forming the left bank of 
Rappahannock river, the tAvo Armies by mutual consent 
dedicating the extensive and cultivated interjacent 
plain on its right bank, gemmed with villas, as a Field 
on Avhich to try the conclusions of war. Colonel Scott's 
cavalry not being employed during the engagement, he 
w^as permitted to go to the front and be a spectator of 
the battle, having acquired, Avhen at school in Freder- 
icksburg a know^iedge of that theatre of combat. He 
was invited by Colonel Henry Peyton on Lee's Staff to 
a])ide with him at Head QiinitPis for the occasion and j^o 



52 • 
was thrown witliColonelCharlesMarsliall tlieAiddeCamp 
and military Secretary and close friend of the illustri- 
ous General and also with Colonel Baldwin the ordnance 
officer of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the early 
morning of the second days tight Colonel Baldwin had 
invited Colonel Scott to accompany him to the front, 
where the Army lay on its arms to see him burn Fred- 
ericksburg, for which he had prepared the necessary in- 
cendiary shells. Anived on the ground, and day being 
fully broke, Colonel Baldwin was asked why the ball 
does not open? "I am waiting," the officer replied "un- 
til the cloud lifts that now rests on the city. " Why 
Colonel Baldwin's incendiary shells were not employed 
on that occasion at all, I did not learn, the fury of the 
engagement calling the attention to other objects. Alter 
the war had closed I learned in Fredericksburg from 
general report that the reason why the town was not 
laid in ashes was that General Lee could not and would 
not devote to destruction the women and children of 
Fredericksburg bj^ the hands of their defenders. Yet a 
lady, a very noble and courageous lady, daughter of a 
hero, who had stayed in the town throughout the fight, 
strongly condemned that humanity in Lee. She said: 
"What were the lives of a dozen old women worth? 
They were not so valuable I am sure as the lives of his 
soldiers. If any useful purpose she insisted was to be 
gained by destroying the town, Fredericksburg ought 
to have been burned." As I gazed in her glowing eyes 
and earnest countenance I thought: "The Roman moth- 
ers are not all dead!" 

Standing on "Lee's Hill," as the position now is call- 
ed, the centre of the Confedrate line, I saw heavy col- 
umns of Federal Infantry, proceeding from the city, de- 
ploy in line of battle and splendidly charge Longstreet's 
position on our left. Amid the roar of cannon, the rat- 
tle of musketry and the shouts of the combatants, I saw 
those assailants recoil broken and routed. A x)art of 
them found shelter from the storm of Longstreet's mis- 
siles in the cut of an unfinished railroad but which ex- 
X^osed them to the fire of artillery from Lee's Hill. A 
piece of heavy ordnance, an iron gun cast in Richmond 



stood there ready charged. At once it was trained on 
the railroad cut and was sighted by Lee, "A little low- 
er Captain, a little higher, now Captain!" The dis- 
charge was very destructive, for the ground was blue 
with Federals, but, at the second shot, the treacherous 
piece burst in the breech, hurting no one, but it might 
have killed or disabled General Lee. It is sad to reflect 
that however skilful in the use of the arm, the Confed- 
erates at that late day had not learned the art of mak- 
ing a cannon, so exclusively devoted to agriculture had 
been that war-like people! What would the world have 
thought of the Sx)artan who had not been taught to 
make his spear? Whilst at Lee's Hill I saw the historic 
figures of Longstreet and Lee as they stood upon the 
parapet of an earthwork sweeping with their glasses 
Stafford Heights. Longstreet looked as if cast in iron 
stern and composed, whilst the face of Lee was radiant 
with the jo}^ of battle. He was dressed with scrupulous 
c ire and had never looked so handsome or so noble, or 
so like a war-God! 



THE RACE PROBLEM. 

THE EMIGUATIOX OF THE NEGRO TO AFRICA SUGGESTED 
AS ITS MOST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION, 

The following communication is from Col. John Scott, 
of Fauquier county, Ya., a well-known ex-Confederate 
soldier and brother of the celebrated Robert E. Scott, 
famous before the civil war as an orator and statesman: — 
Baltimore Sun. 

''Messrs. Editors. — It is a growing opinion in the South, 
where the negro i3roblem has become intensely practical, 
that the stake is the appropriate punishment for the 
black man who outrages a white woman, excepting a sect 
who are of the oi3inion that a bill of indictment is the 
right kind of weapon wherewithal to wage a race war. 
A iiunishment, to act as a deterrent, must, according to 
reason and the settled rule of criminal law be jDropor- 
tioned to the crime. Here Georgia takes her immovable 
stand. It is the doom of the American negro to be de- 
stroved bv the white man unless the fate is averted by a 



54 
deportation to Africa. Here we have another growing 
idea, but patronized by him who would be good as well 
as wise. He says: "Transport the negro back to his native 
home." Hon. Robert E. Scott was a man who in his day 
was well known in Virginia. He attached a very great 
importance to the South' s nnion with the North and 
West, He answered all contentions Avith the fact that 
with the union we i)reserve avast power having the abil 
ity to remove the black race back to Africa, the only so- 
lution of the negro question worthy of the statesman and 
philanthropist, Mr. Scott thought. Let, then, those fond, 
caressing congeners, England and the United States, 
who conjointly are responsibla for the negro's enslave- 
ment and his presence here, obtain, while Africa is still 
open for settlement, a home for him convenient for resi- 
dence and suitable for expansion. Upon such an object 
President McKinley might, with great x3ropriety5 spend 
some of his superfluous millions and England a part of 
the hoarded gold which she has collected from mankind. 
Lines of steamers flying from the Gulf and Atlantic ports 
would soon efl'ect the desired result. If, indeed, the ne- 
cro be callable of living an independent civilized exis- 
tence and managing a civilized empire, then might the 
emancix^ationist and optimist x^oint with ijride to a flour- 
ishing sable empire, where fertility of soil, variety of 
production and geniality of climate would combine with 
odoriferous gales to offer to the returned exile a flnal 
home, guarded from the blighting x)resence of the white 
man, the hated son of Japhet, who conquers, enslaves, 
confiscates, according to his sovereign x)leasure. The ne- 
gro's absence would render this ocean-bound rej^ublic 
the proud dominion of the white man, where his woman- 
kind might dw^ell in safety and honor. " 




Decerriber 2nd,..^^^X 



My dear Colonel :• 

To me your article is very interesting; but editors 
in this city say that the public curiosity about the incidents of the 
war is extinct. They will not accept your essay. Accordingly I 
return it. 

I am pleased to hear from you, and to observe that the mind 
which produced "The Lost Principle", is as clear and vigorous as ever. 

With the "best wishes for your welfare and hoping to see you 
again, I am. 

Very Sincerely Tours, 



Col. John Scott, 

Warren ton, 

Fauquier Co. Va. 



PART SECOND. 

after tbe Mar. 

H Coupon Conttovers^. 

The coupon litigation of the State of Virginia with 
her British Creditors is worthy of a place in the popu- 
lar recollection because of two interesting questions of 
State's Rights whi/.h are involved. It had been provi- 
ded by her two debt settlements that the couj)ons, or 
certificates of the year's interest, attached to each bond 
should be receivable for taxes and other x>ublic dues, 
and the stipulation was printed on each coupon. The 
tax-receivable coupon was an ingenious contrivance of 
the creditor to insure the application of the public taxes 
in the first place, to the payments of the interest on his 
bond however great might be the emergency pressing 
ux)on the Commonwealth, and was founded in distrust of 
the State's financial honor. These coupons, or certifi 
cates of interest, as they became due were separated 
from the bonds, and were sold in the public market 
for as much as they Avould bring. In this way Virginia 
coupons had accumulated in the money centres of Great 
Britian, but chiefly in London, to an amount as grext as 
four millions of dollars, but to become five millions, it 
was estimated, by the time the debt was imid, through 
the annual additions of coupons. As these debt set- 
tlements were contested by the State for, unfairness and 
unconstitutionality, no provision had been made by the 
Legislature for the payment of coupons. The conse- 
quence was a rapid depreciation of the Virginia coupon 
until it became a subject of speculation. A band of 
London speculators purchased coupons to a large amount 
to dispose of to Virginia tax payers. 

If the speculation should x)rove successful, and the 
market value of the coupon was established, it was evi- 
dent that Virginia would be brought to the condition of 
a bankrupt by having her treasury filled to repletion 
with tax-receivable coupons as of ten as the legislature 
should impose taxes, for the state would he compelled 



56 
in this way to pay five millions of debt before she could 
devote a dollar to the support of her government, or her 
eelemosynary foundations. To avert so great a calamity 
as bankrui3tcy, inevitable in her then ijlundered and 
impoverished condition, the legislature employed sever- 
al expedients and finally "the Coupon Crusher," as the 
act of Assembly was called, enacted at a special session 
May 12th, 1887. That statute, so memorable in judicial 
history, directed the county treasurer to report to the 
Commonwealth's Attorney of his town or county the 
name of each tax payer who had tendered coupons and 
also the amount of his tax bills, whilst it commanded each 
Commonwealth Attorney, under a penalty not less than 
a hundred dollars nor greater than five hundred dollars 
to sue the recusant taxpayers in the Circuit Court of his 
county for his taxes so remaining uni)aid. As the law 
was devised with the utmost legal skill it was confident- 
ly expected that it would do the business of the coupon 
and the expectation w^as not disappointed. But a stormy 
experience awaited the Coupon Crusher, a prolonged 
and bitter controversy in the Courts. The creditor, as 
the speculator became by the fact of purchase, was ad- 
vised to have recourse to the Federal Courts, under the 
belief that th(*y would enable him to destroy the obnox- 
ious statirte. It was thought by the creditor and his 
legal advisers to be a club of Hercules in their hands. 
Accordingly a suit in equity was instituted by the i^ublic 
creditor in the Circuit Court of the United States for 
the eastern district of Virginia to enjoin Hon, Rufus A . 
Ayres, the Attorney General, Colonel Morton Marye, 
the Auditor of Public Accounts and all the Common- 
wealth's Attorneys of the state from bringing those 
suits. The complainant's bill sets forth "that they 
were British subjects and were the owners of a hundred 
thousand dollars of the tax-receivable coupons of Vir- 
ginia for which they had paid thirty thousand dollars; 
that they had sold fifty thousand dollars of that amount 
for fifteen thousand dollars or more to the tax payers 
of Virginia wiio had tendered the same to the prc^per 
state officers in the payment of their taxes, but that the 
said officers refused to receive the same: that if the offi- 



57 
cers of the state were permitted to enforce the act of 
May 12th, the complainants would be unable to sell the 
remaining fifty thousand of their coupons to the tax-pay- 
ers of Virginia for any price, and their entire property 
would be lost; and that the said act of May 12th, 1887 
was unconstitutional and void." 

The Attorney General, Hon. Rufus A. Ayers, the At- 
torney for the Commonwealth of Fauquier County, Col- 
onel John Scott, and the Attorney for Commonwealth 
of Loudoun County, Judge J. B. McCabe, refused obe- 
dience to the restraining order issued from Judge Bond's 
Court by instituting the iDrohibited suits. Thereupon 
a rule was served upon each of those officers of the state 
of Virginia requiring them to appear in Judge Bond' s 
Court and show cause why they should not be imprison- 
ed and fined for a contempt of his Court . On the 22nd 
day of September, 1887, at eleven o'clock a. m., the 
Commonwealth's Attorney of Fauquier County appear- 
ed in the Federal Circuit Court in Kichmond and filed a 
paper containing his answer to the Rule, as did the 
Hon. Attorney General, and Hon. Commonwealth's At- 
torney for Loudoun County, but not at that time, thus 
making the issue complete between the United States 
and themselves. The Court adjudged the Attorney 
General to be guilty of the alleged contempt, and requir- 
ed him forthwith to dismiss the suit of Commonwealth 
vs, Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., instituted by him in the 
Circuit Court in the city of Richmond, fined him $500.00 
for his contempt of court and directed that he stand 
committed in the custody of the Marshal of the court 
until the same be paid, and to purge himself of his con- 
tempt by dismissing the said suit last mentioned. In 
the other two cases similar judgments were rendered, 
except that John Scott was fined $10 and costs, and J,B. 
McCabe was fined $100.00 and costs. The result was 
that the three officers on their non-compliance with the 
judgments of the Court w^ere confined in the city jail of 
'Richmond there to be kept until the judgments were 
complied with. 

The respondents in the equity suit and defendants to 
The Rule to Show Cause, each petitioned the Supreme 



58 
Court of the United States to grant tliem writs of liabe 
as corpus tliat the legality of their detention might be 
inquirsd into. The question when eliminated from 
these proceedings, excited an interest throughout the 
country, as Avell it might. It was whether officers of a 
State government could be fined and imprisoned for pre- 
fering to obey the mandate of the State to the contrary 
order of a Federal Judge. It was indeed a question 
that reached to the bottom of a government of sovereign 
States. When stated truly the question Avas whether a 
State of the Union was to be degraded from the position 
of a sovereign State of Union, the where Constitu- 
tion had placed it, to the condition of vassal to a Fed- 
eral court. 

The Answer is given here of the Commonwealth's At- 
torney for Fauquier County, presenting two grounds of 
justification for his refusal to obey the restraining order 
of Judge Bond, and for his prefering to obey the com- 
mand of his State. 



ANSWER OF JOHN SCOTT, OF FAUQUIER, TO 
JUDGE BOND'S RULE TO SHOW CAUSE. 

Filed September 22nd, 1887, 

Honorable Hugh L. Bond, Judge of the Circuit Court 
of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, 
at the Court-house in Richmond: 

May it please your Honour: In compliance with a rule 
issued by 3^our Honour against me to show cause before 
your Honour, at the court-house in Richmond, on the 
22nd day of September, 1887, at eleven o'clock a. m. of 
that day, why I should not be attached for contempt in 
disregarding a certain restraining order of your Honour, 
made in the cause of Jas. P. Cooper, H. R. Beeton, F. 
J. Burt, et cds vs. Morton Marye, auditor, <S:c., R. A. 
Ayers, attorney-general, &c., ets als. on the 6tli day of 
June, 1887, I appear now in yonr Honour's court, and 
submit this i^aper, which contains my answer to said 
rule. 



59 

Your Honour's restraining order forbade me, as com- 
monwealtli's attorney for the county of Fauquier, to dis- 
charge certain duties imposed upon me, as one of the 
commonwealth's attornies of the state ot Virginia, by a 
statute of the legislature approved by the governor. May 
12Lh, 1887, which in its 14th section provides, in case of 
disobedience by any officer to it, a pecuniary penalty 
not less in amount than $100, nor greater than $500. 

As your honour well knows, it is a principle recognized 
by publicists of all civilized countries, as the foundation 
of political life, that a citizen or subject doing an act en- 
joined upon him by the state is covered by the panoply 
of the state, and is exempt from every degree of person- 
al responsibility except to his own sovereign. 

As a state can act only through the agency of individ- 
uals, this immunity is necessary to enable it to preserve 
itself and perform its other high functions. 

x\n example of the application of this X3ublic law oc- 
curs in the history of the United States in the case of 
the state of ISlew York against McLeod, a British subject, 
who was released from prison by the direction of Mr. 
Webster, secretary of state, ordering a nolle prosequi 
addressed to the attorney-general of the state of New 
York. It was a command to the judicial power, and 
was based on the fact that McLeod' s action had been 
adopted by the British government as one performed by 
its authority. ('-Webster's Works.") 

The pinciple of exemption referred to applies with all 
its force to the states of the American Union and to their 
agents, for these states are admitted to be bodies politic 
in the highest and completest sense of the words, (Poin- 
dexter vs. Greenhow, 114 ''United States Reports," p. 
288.) 

But it is made a condition by that decision, to enable 
a defendant to avail himself of the exemption, that ''It 
is necessary for him to produce a law of the state which 
constitutes his commission as its agent, and the warrant 
for his act." (lb.) 

With this condition I comply now by directing your 
Honour's attention to the law of Virginia, before refer- 
red to, and to the third section, which is in these words: 



GO 
"The proceeding shall be by motion in the name of the 
commonwealth, on ten days notice, and shall be insti- 
tuted and prosecuted by the attorney for the 
commonwealth of the county or corporation in 
which the proceeding is; or, if it be instituted by 
direction of the auditor of public accounts, in the circuit 
court of the city of Richmond." 

This Act of Assembly was passed obviously with the 
design to induce the holders of tax receivable coupons 
to submit them for identification and verification, as re- 
quired by the previous Act of January 14th, 1882, the 
condition upon which the commonwealth allowed her 
treasurers to receive the coupons for taxes. 

This law has been examined by the Supreme Court of 
the United States in Antoui vs. Greenhow, and it was 
decided by that final arbiter to be in accordance with 
the constituticm (107, United States Reports," p. 770.) 

The statute to which I have referred in justification of 
my acts, being designed simply to render a i)revious 
statute effectual, must be regarded as equally constitu- 
tional with it: for the means are appropriate, and there- 
fore ought to protect me from the censures of this court. 

But, in a very high quarter, it is contended that if the 
State law, which the agent or officer obeys, be subse- 
quently held to be unconstitutional by the court trying 
the cause, it becomes a nullity, and does not protect the 
officer from penal consequences, for only those laws — 
such is the doctrine — which are decided to be constitu- 
tional, can be regarded by a Federal court as mandates 
of the State; an unconstiutional law or such as a majori 
ty of the court may choose to say is unconstitutional, 
being but the unauthorized act of the individuals who 
compose the State government. 

Thus is a state separated from its government, without 
which it ceases to be a state. 

To enable the learned judges to reach this eccentric 
conclusion, it was found necessary to define a state to be 
"an ideal person, intangible, invisible, immutable," and 
incapable of wrong or error (Mr. Justice Mathews in 
Poindexter vs. Greenhow, p. 291.) 

Thus, ])v the astuteness of a lawyer, a state is trans- 



61 
formed into a mytliical personage; along such strange 
lines does the judical imagination sportively wander! 

From what source that definition of a state of the Union 
was obtained is not known to me; but certainly it was 
not obtained from the constitution and laws of the Uni- 
ted States, the only lexicon which this court will consult 
in a case which so deei^ly concerns the highest franchise 
of a sovereign state, the liberty of its citizens, and the 
obedience of its officers. 

May it please your Honour, a state of the American 
Union is not a myth, but is a living corporation. It is 
composed of a collection of individuals, inhabiting a de- 
fined geographical space, with a government and laws 
to organize and impart to them the characterLstics of a 
body political, and which maintains constitutional rela- 
tions with the government of the United States. 

Thus defined a State is tangible, visible, mutable, and 
is capable of doing wrong and committing error, as the 
secession of Virginia and other reconstructed States of 
South section will doubtless prove to so loyal a citizen 
as Mr. Justice Mathews. 

The fourth section of Article 4 of the Constitution 
provides that "the United States shall guarantee to every 
state of the Union a Republican form of government." 
To convince your Honour that this guaranty has been 
complied with in the case of Virginia, I have but to re- 
fer to the read mission of that state into the Union after 
the close of the civil war with a constitution accepted as 
Republican by Congress. That was an act of the politi- 
cal power; it binds all, and this court cannot controvert 
or annul it. 

Your Honour will take judicial notice that the Rei:>ub 
lican Constitution of Virginia, accepted by Congress 
and guaranteed by the United States, created a govern- 
ment of the people of Virginia, who are the State of 
Virginia, and that its gDvernment must be presumed by 
this court to be conducted in accordance with their 
wishes and by their commands. Its acts are their acts. 
They bind in contemplation of law as much as the acts 
of any deputy can bind his principal. This presump- 
tion of law, not the Supreme Court, in the plentitude 



62 
of despotic power, seeking to subordinate the States to 
its absolute dicta, can break down or set at naught. — 
Particularly is this true in this deplorable debt contro- 
versy, out of which this constitutional problem has aris- 
en — a flower from a fetid soil — so interesting to every 
intelligent mind in the United States. It is known that 
over it the State of Virginia, or, to speak with a stricter 
propriety, a majority of the political body, has passion- 
ately taken jurisdiction, moving its representatives as 
puppets and dictating legislation in relation to it. 

If this reasoning be correct, I conclude that whether 
the act of May 12 be considered constitutional or uncon- 
stitutional, it is equally the act of the State of Virginia, 
and that I, its commanded agent officer, am not in con 
tempt because, when placed in the dilemma of contrary 
orders, I have yielded obedience to my natural sover- 
eign whose bread I eat and whose laws I have sworn to 
obey whenever I act as commonwealth's attorney. This 
then, may be received as an established theorem: The 
unconstitutionality of a statute in cases like this does 
not render it less the act of the state; nor less effective 
in protecting the agent who obeys it from legal respon- 
sibility to any other authority. 

The state which directs my official conduct, is, by the 
laws of the civilized world, accountable for it, and to 
the state of Virginia I refer your Honour as the respon- 
sible party in this case. 

Arraign Virginia before your judgment seat; visit your 
penalties on her head-not on me,her agent and subaltern. 

But another deduction may be drawn from this rea- 
soning which it is well not to overlook in this place. 

If it be true, as a constitutional proposition, that all 
the acts of a Kepublican government are assumed to ])e 
the acts of the state, and that this ruling o^" the Supreme 
Court is, indeed, a blow at the sovereignty of the peo- 
ple of the states, it is a logical consequence that when a 
Federal court takes jurisdiction of a state officei- it there- 
by assumes jurisdiction of the state itself. 

To hold otherwise is to evade its eleventh amendment, 
and to treat the constitution with contemj^t, instead of 
with honour and obedience. 



68 

A single consideration will set this truth very clearly 
before your Honour. 

If, by afflicting the agents or officers of Virginia with 
imprisonment and confiscation, the Supreme Court can 
succeed in forcins: the treasurers toaccept con j)ons with- 
out verificatiou and upon simple tender, upon whom, I 
ask, does the consequence fall? Not upon the treasurers; 
not upon the commonwealth's attorneys. The conse- 
quence falls alone upon the state of Virginia, whose 
treasury, by this means, will have been bankrupted by 
unconstitutional action of the Supreme Court, The Su- 
preme Court needs not to be informed that behind 
those treasurers and these commonwealth's attorneys 
the state of Virginia stands to be afl'ected by all the de- 
cisions against them. 

Through all these mazes and crooked paths, Virginia is 
the party whom the Supreme Court is seeking to reach; 
that state is the game they are hunting. Although the 
only party in interest, Virginia, is not made a party to 
the record, because the eleventh amendment, w^iich for- 
bids a state to be sued in a Federal court by an individ- 
ual, awkwardly stands in the way. No other reason 
can be assigned for the omission to stand her at the bar 
of the Supreme Court. Surely your Honour will allow 
tnat this court, because ft is forbidden to entertain a suit 
against the state of Virginia, cannot therefore lay vio- 
lent hands on me. A defect of power over the state is 
not a grant over power of the citizen. 

This defect of jurisdiction significantly suggest that 
when the states fashioned the constitution they did not 
design to confer upon the Federal court that jurisdiction 
and it affords strong support to the opinion that when 
th^ constitution declares a state legislature shall not 
pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, it 
did not mean to include contracts made by the state it- 
self, which, as a body political, it had the election to 
perform or not according to the dictates of its morality. 

If, finally, it comes to be decided — for this great ques 
tion is yet in a state of fluctuation — that a Federal court 
can constitutionally step ])etween a state of the Union 
and its officers and ao*ents, and absolve them from obe- 



64 
dience to it, a most fatal blow will have been struck at 
the existence of the states of this L'nion. 
The clouds will have begun to gather, and preparations 
made :for those evil times which prognosticators foretell 
are ahead of this Republic. 

The states called this Union into existence, and from 
having been the massive pillars of a Federal system, they 
will have sunk down into the degraded vassals of the Su 
pre me Court. 

Your Honour will be x)leased to take notice that this 
Federal Union, designed and constructed by the fathers 
of the Republic for the habitation of a free people, may 
be destroyed as effectually by a consolidation of the 
stares as by red-handed secession. When a stretch of 
judicial power is proposed which, if successful, must 
produce that result, surely, by this court, for that rea- 
son, it ought to be condemned as unconstitutional; but 
if your Honour shall reject my arguments as vain and 
illusory, and shall decide that I have acted in contempt 
of your Honour's authority, I am here to abide the con- 
sequences of your Honour's disi3leasure. 

All of which is respectfully submitted. 

JOHN SCOTT, 
Commonwealth's Attorney for 

Fauquier County, Virginia. 

Richmond, September 22nd, 1887. 

After solemn argument by able and distinguished coun- 
sel the Su^ireme Court at the October term 1887 decided 
as follows, Mr. Justice Stanley Matthews delivering the 
opinion of the court w^ith Mr. Justice Field concurring 
and Mr. Justice Harlan dissenting: 

"The principal contention on the part of the petition- 
ers is that the suit, nominally against them is, in fact 
and in law, a suit against the state of Virginia, whose 
officers they are, jurisdiction to entertain v»4iichis deni- 
ed by the 11th Amendment to the Constituti^^n, '^ '^ " 
AVe adjudge the suit of "Cooper vs. Marye," in which 
the injunctions were granted against the present x>eti- 
tioners, to be in substance and in law a suit against the 
State of Virginia. It is, therefore, within the prohibi- 
tion of the 11th Amf^ndnient of the Constitution. Bv the 



65 
terms of that provision, it is a case to which the judicial 
power of the United States does not extend. The Circuit 
Court was without jurisdiction to entertain it. All the 
Ijroceedings in the exercise of the jurisdiction which it 
assumed are null and void. 

The orders forbidding the petitioners to bring the suits, 
for bringing which they were adjudged in contempt of 
its authority, it had no power to make. The orders ad- 
judging them in contempt were equally void, and their 
imi;)risonment is williout the authority of law. 

It is order ecL therefore, that the petitioners he discharged. 
The second ground urged in- the answer given above, 
was broadly accepted ])y the court and made the ground 
of its decision, but not the first position, which is as fol- 
lows: 

*^It is a principle recognized' by publicists of all civilized 
countries, as the foundation •©/ political life, that a citizen 
or subject doing an act enjorned upon him by the state is 
covered by the panoply of the state, and is exempt from 
every degree of personal responsibility except to his oivn 
sovereign,-' 

Yet the first contention here given is as well sustained 
by the Public Law, applicable to this case, as the second 
position was sustained b}" the P]leventh Amendment of 
the constitution. That ground of defense is upheld in 
an argument printed in the Yirginia Law Magazine for 
September 1895, page 817, and is here submitted to the 
reader with entire confidence in its soundness. 



t/M *ytrvKA^ Xaunr^f uMi^ QtI^ 









// 



o 



68 
AN APPEAL TO THE AREOPAGUS. 

There is a question of State Rights, lyins: deeply bur- 
ied in the voluminous Virginia Habeas Corpus cases — 
in re Ayres, in re Scott, in re McCahe (123 United States 
Rej)orts, page 443) — to which it is desired, in this place, 
to invite attention, and to suggest a solution of it dif- 
ferent from the one which, so peremptorily, it has receiv- 
ed from the Supreme Federal Court. In this country of 
independent thought and free discussion, there is re- 
served for an oppressed, or misunderstood, truth appeal 
to the forum of opinion whit^h is supplied with a more 
potential executive force than the utterance even of an 
ultimate Federal Court. 

In that jurisdiction a light is ]3ermitted Co penetrate 
through any cleft or fissure, although to shine with a 
feeble and struggling ray. Within those precincts is a 
Hill of Mars, on which an Areopagus holds midnight 
sessions, administering a blindfold justice, open to eve- 
ry suitor. To this court, thus high throned, this a j) peal 
now is carried. 

In a government, as this republic of combined sover- 
eign States poised and balanced between extremes, it is 
the duty of every court, whenever summoned so to arbi- 
trate, scrupulously to uphold the rights of the States, 
counteracting and binding, by this policy, the deep, the 
impetuous, revolutionizing current steadily running to- 
wards an antagonistic power, in proximity to the States 
and connected w^th them by innumerable ties. To con- 
stitute such a bulwark to the rights of the States, with- 
out doubt, was the highest function expected of Federal 
Courts as planned and framed by the architects of the 
Constitution. 

Upon the loyal performance of the brave duty, amid 
all oscillations and derangements, produced by accident 
or the times, depended the retention of the system's fed- 
erati^^e character, as a substantiality, at least as some- 
thing more than the emi)t3^ shell which it is the inclina 
tion of the Supreme Court to make it. It is doubtless 
more agreeable, perhaps safer and more prohtal)[e, too, 
to pay court to the great king, throned at the center, 
rather than to the States, whose jurisdiction has been 



69 
absorbed, and whose revenues have been sequestrated 
and dispensed by a profuse imperial hand. To a system, 
thus nicely arranged, concentration is as destructive as 
secession. Perhaps it is more so, since consolidation 
devours the material out of which the Federal conglom 
erate was composed, whereas secession, as it occurred 
with the first Federal experiment, may be followed by 
reconstruction, with a revived sx)irit and imx)roved forms. 
As the citizen beholds headlands crumble away, and fa- 
miliar landmarks disap23ear, naturally he dreads the en- 
croaching wave. Like Atlas, upholding the superin- 
cumbent weight, the States are stationary x)illars, whilst 
the Central Organ, their creature, is imbued with an in- 
cessant and powerful activity, whose heart-beats throb 
through the system. Absorption now is the danger point. 
After discharging its wrathful vials, like an exhausted 
vaporous cloud, secession has drifted off. Perhaps no 
mistake in statesmanship is so great as that which al- 
low^s terrible objects in the x^ast to blind, the statesman to 
present dangers. Oliver Cromwall, able as he was as 
General and siatesman, with an historical English dread 
of Armadas, continued to be apprehensive of the power 
of Spain after that great body had been smitten with 
palsy, and did not see across a gut of water, but 
twenty miles from Dover Cliffs, that a new power had ris- 
en to threaten the independence and endanger the peace 
of Europe. The warning, given to the adventurous mari- 
ner of antiquity, ought to be inscribed over the judgment 
seat of each United States Court — in medio tutissimus 
ibis — for, Scylla's barking waves are as terrible as 
Charybdis, and Charybdis as Scylla. 

To carry into effect the reasonable expectation of the 
fathers of the new-modeled republic, each Federal judge 
ought to constitute himself a guardian ad litem to a 
State, wherever one of them is a party to a controversy 
before him, to vindicate its right under the Constitution, 
not to seize the occasion to strip it still farther of sover- 
eign attributes, to pluck other royal feathers from its 
crest. 

The x^oint proposed for examination will be extricated 
from the mass of facts Avith which it is connected, and 



70 
set distinctly before us. The validity oi' the statute, 
of May 12, 1887, passed at an extra session of the 
Virginia Legislature, was questioned at the bar of the 
Supreme Court as authority for certain tax suits which 
had been instituted by the Attorney-General and the 
two Commonwealth's attorneys, his co-defendants in the 
court below and joint x)etitioners to the Supreme Court. 
After learned argument, the Supreme Court sustained 
the impeached statute as a legal basis for the suits 
which had been enjoined, and discharged the officers 
of the State of Virginia from the custody of the marshal 
on the ground that the Circuit Court for the Eastern 
District of Virginia, in which the suits had been brought 
was without jurisdiction, because of the exemption con- 
tained in the eleventh amendment of the Constitution of 
the United States, thus annulling and avoiding, from 
the beginning the proceedings against the defendants. 
But one of the petitioners, the second name in the record, 
in his answer to the rule to show cause, had insisted 
very earnestly, as one of his grounds, that the constitu- 
tionality of the act of May 12th was not necessarily, in 
volved in the judicial inquiry — thus introducing into the 
controversy, with the creditors of the State of Virginia, 
a very important and, as it proved, a very litigated 
question of State's Rights — because, he insisted, by an 
understood principle of public law, ax)plicable to this 
case, the act of May 12th, whether constitutional or not, 
was valid as an authority to protect the servants of Vir- 
ginia, acting in obedience to her law, from all personal 
responsibilit}^ although it might not be adjudged valid 
for other purposes. 

The case of Alexander McLeod was relied upon to 
sustain that proposition of law. McLeod was a British 
subject, who had been indicted in one of the courts of 
("he State of New York for an alleged murder. The 
British Government avowed its res})onsibility for Mc 
Leod's act and demanded his release from imprisonment 
and accusation. The homicide had occurred during the 
administration of President Tyler, and Mr. Webster, in 
in a position appropriate to his great talents, was the 
Secretary of State. With a noble candor, which disrin- 



71 
guished his diplomatic career, extending through two 
Presidential terms, and which imijarted dignity to his 
office and lustre to his character, the Secretary acceded 
to the British demands, saying: "In the ox)inion of the 
United States, the avowal on the part of his government 
protected McLeod from personal responsibility." (The 
case of the Caroline, Life of Daniel Webster, by George 
Ticknor Curtis, Yol. II. p. 68.) This recognition of the 
public law by the United States makes McLeod' s case a 
precedent of the highest authority in the jurisprudence 
of nations, where it stands as a fixed rock. But is it to 
govern in cases like that of the agents or officers of the 
State of Virginia, acting under the compulsion and au- 
thority of the act of Ma}^ 12th, when they are confronted 
with a restraining order of a Federal Court? That is the 
further question which we have to consider in the propo- 
sition before us. Except where the Constitution of the 
United States applies, a casus foederis , the States of the 
Union in respect to each other, and to the government of 
the United States, are to be considered in the light of 
independent sovereignties, bound by the obligations and 
protected by the law of nations. It is not necessary to 
cite authority to sustain this conceded principle of Fed- 
eral laAv. There is nothing in the Federal charter of 
granted powers, which confers on any department of the 
government, which it designed to create, any authority to 
punish a State officer for obeying the State laws. If there 
were any such jurisdiction, it would put a State in chains 
and, at a single blow, destroy all States' Rights. If we 
would guard and protect the States of the Union, as en- 
tities, and save them from becoming practically non-en- 
tities, we must extend to them the principle of the pub- 
lic law, enunciated in McLeod' s case by Secretary Web- 
stei'. I>^ery reason of necessity and policy which enti- 
tles an external power, like Great Britian, to the appli- 
cation of the rule of law, equally applies, in the case be- 
fore us, to the State of Virginia. Government, except 
where obtained from a superior power as a colonial char- 
ter, is a growth of society. It is impossible for a com- 
munity of human beings to exist without a government. 
This is true of political society, and in natural society 



72 
there is tlie authority of the magister. When the North 
American States associated under a federative compact, 
for self protection, each State possessed a government 
claiming and exercising the right of control over its sub- 
jects, and, as incidental to that great authority, and in- 
separable from it, the f urthur right to protect them from 
personal responsibility to any other pow^er for acts of 
obedience to the home government. The natural right 
of every political body to provide itself with a govern- 
ment grows out of a necessary inherent sovereignty, and 
when Mr. Justice Matthews (page 505) instructs the 
country in the constitutional doctrine that the States of 
the Union are "invested with that large residuum of sov- 
ereignty which has not been delegated to the United 
States," he in effect admits the natural authority of a 
State of the Union to create a government, an ajjparatus 
which cannot act, or even exist, withotit agents, who are 
shielded from all external personal responsibility. The 
right of protection is indeed the condition of the duty of 
obedience. 

When the man of affairs, instead of the idealogue, 
comes to deal with this problem, the misty atmosx)here, 
with which metaphysics invested itin a cotirt-room, dis- 
perses. Happily for the cause of truth in this case, we 
are not without the authority of a very respectable pre- 
cedent to sanction this position, which ought to com- 
mand the assent of lawyer and layman. 

When the States of the South Section withdrew from 
fellowship and union with the United States to found a 
government in accord with their own ideas, the secession 
was effected by each State exercing an absolute jurisdic 
tion over its citizens. It was the absolute x^ower over its 
people which inheres in sovereignty, whether rex)ubli- 
can or monarchial, and nowhere in history was that ab- 
soltite principle more fully comprehended, asserted, or 
conceded than in the Southern Commonwealths of that 
period. Virginia, in that supreme hour, claimed to ex- 
tend her scej)tre over every man who had been born on 
her soil. He belonged to her, she asserted, by a per- 
petual and inalienable allegiance. She spoke like a king, 
"Once a subject, always a subject." She lifted up her 



^3 

great voic6 and lier sons came to her from all climates and 
all localities. It was a proud moment in the history of 
that mother of statesmen! Here is an historic declaration 
of that princiiile, a defiance to the proclamation of Pres- 
ident Jackson, from the pen of John Randolph of Roa- 
noke, adopted with one voice by the p^o^ile of Charlotte 
county: '^The allegiance of the peox)le of Virginia is due 
to her; to her their obedience is due, while to them she 
owes protection against all consequences of such obedi- 
ence." (Home Reminiscences of Randolph, by Powha- 
tan Bouldin.) Here also is another declaration of that 
organic xuinciple of States' Rights by Josiah Quincy, 
another great man, but born in the opposite section of 
tlie United States: "As it is with the people of every 
State, so it is with the people of this Commonwealth — 
the individuals composing this this State owe to the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts an allegiance original, inherent, 
native and perpetual." In the just meaning of the word 
"State," it ceases to exist when it is despoiled of the 
right to protect its agents and officers from personal re- 
sponsibility incurred by obedience to the State. This 
right to protect is indeed the basanite and touch-stone 
of the retention of the sovereign principle. This truth 
Mr. Justice Matthews, and his learned brother of the 
silken stole, knew asAvell as others. They understood 
well enough that, in the language objected to, they were 
cutting the tap root of the States' system. This is one 
the deplorable consequences of intrusting political power 
to courts and judges, as they are ever seeking to widen 
and extend their jurisdictions, which acts of aggression, 
piously they call laiv. 

The right of protection denied when men's minds are 
engrossed in the pursuit of gain, or are sunk in rei)Ose, 
was not called in question by the United States amid the 
throes of the secession period. Among the great num- 
ber of Confederate prisoners, captured with arms in 
their hands and blood stains on their uniforms, not 
one was held in a treason trial for levying war on the 
UnitedStites, or for conspiring against their government. 
Even he, the Heresiarch, thus panoplied, was allowed to 



74 . 
walk forth forth from his casemate, untried, unquestion- 
ed, unhurt. 

Why? Surely not because a justification was conce 
ded to the right of secession, but because, under our 
system of a Union of Sovereign States, each man, the 
ringleader and all, were covered from personal responsi- 
bilit}^ by the admitted duty of obedience, each man to 
his State. But the States, which had assumed the re- 
sx:)onsibility for the acts of their statesmen and sol- 
diers, were visited by all the stern methods of war. 
Here the world has an exposition of the law of ourUnion 
applicable to this case, made by the able men wiio had 
been put in charge of the Government of the United 
States by a great nation girded with the sword, the pub- 
lic judgment, and the courts as well, consenting. It is 
a 2>recedent which even the Supreme Court of this sleep3^ 
period might not entirely ignore if it were x^ossible for a 
lawyer to look abroad into universality and put by his 
catechism of the court room. It was an historic era 
which tells us in language, not to be forgotten or mis 
understood, what in American law is meant by a sover- 
eign State. It is not an idle form of words, as the Su- 
preme Court ai)pear to consider. This is the memorable 
lessson which the political power teaches to the judicial 
power. But Mr, Justice Matthews rejects this inter- 
pretation of the Constitution and laws, and the appeal 
now is taken to the Areopagy of opinion. The autoc- 
ratic Justice Matthews thus i)i'onounces the sentence of 
his absolute and final CO irl: "The Government of the 
United States, in the enforcement of its laws, deals with 
all x>ei'sons in its territorial jurisdiction as individi als 
owing obedience to iis authority. The penalties of dis- 
obedience may be visited on them without regard to the 
character in which they assume to act, or the nature of 
the exemption they may plead in justification. Noth- 
ing can be interposed between the individual and tlie ob- 
ligation he owes to the Constitution and laws of the Uni- 
ted States, which can shield or defend him from their 
just authority, and the extent and limits of that 
authority, the United States by the judicial power 
interprets and applies for itself. If. therefore, an indl- 



75 
vicinal acting nnder the assnmed anthority of a State, as 
one of its officers, and nnder color of its laws; comes in- 
to conflict with the sni^erior anthority of a valid law of 
the United States, he is stripped of his representative 
character, and snbjected, in his ow^n i)erson, to the con- 
sequences of his individual conduct. The State has no 
power ro impart to him any immunity from personal re- 
sponsi])ility to the suj^reme authority of the United 
States." 

Are we in St. Petersburg, or was this dictatorial lan- 
guage used to the sovereign States by their own creature? 
In this' extract from its opinion, the SupremeCourt choos- 
es to ignore the fact that the nation of the United States 
is a federal nation, not a solid body of individuals, that 
each State under the Constitution is a sovereignty, which 
the Supreme Court, in its interpi'etation of the Constitu- 
tion, is not at liberty to inii)air '^r destroy. An impor- 
tant point of the argument is that without an irrespon- 
sil)ility in the persons and fortunes of its agents to the 
Federal Government, or to any of its departments, the 
State powers may be destroyed, since a State must act 
tlirongli the agency of individuals and cannot act in any 
other way. 

Cannot a Federal jndge be made to understand that 
any theory of Federal authority that would operate to 
accomplish that disastrous result would be, must be, un- 
constitutional? Surely the Supreme Court does not deny 
it to be as unconstitutional to strike the system in its 
entirety as to wound a particular part of it! The Rt. 
Hon. James Bryce, in his survey of our Government, felt 
w^airanted in saying: "The States have learned to fear 
the Supreme Court as an antagonist." Indeed, it is a 
Constrietor wdiich they feel may crush their system. The 
apprehension is well founded, and their sovereignty is 
the only i^ractical limitation to its growing jurisdiction. 
If additional securities are not provided by the Consti 
tntion, or the Courts, it will happen that the States must 
consult the last volume of the Supreme Court Reports to 
]>e taught how much or how little^ of the old convenanted 
liberty has been left. The Supreme Court has become a 
maelstrom in which all ships that navigate Federal sea 



7G . 
may be drowned — a snn into whose glowing fnrnace, by 
an irresistible attraction, star, comet, system — all — will 
be x)recij)itated. But the authority for the imx)erious 
language employed by Mr. Justice Matthews, quoted 
above, is Osborn vs. Bank of the United States the Ohio 
jcase, as recognized by judges and lawyers, which is 
found in 9th of Wheaton's United States Reports, page 
738; and I cannot, in justice to the cause, which I pre 
sume srill to champion, forbear its mention here. It has 
been a landmark in the profession, an idol to which men 
have bowed, bu^^^, happily, it can no longer, I think, be 
regarded in that light. By a statute of Ohio a tax of 
$500 was imposed on each bank of the United States do- 
ing business within the State, and by the authority of 
a warrant, or execution, from Osborn, the Auditor, as 
the statute provides. Harper entered the bank at Chilli- 
cothe and carried off coin and notes sufficient to satisfy 
Ohio's demand, and delivered the money to Curry, the 
Treasurer, who placed it to the credit of the State on 
the treasury books yet kept it in a trunk separate from 
other monies. 

Tills x^articular fund, with the rest of the treasury's 
contents, was delivered to Sullivan, Curry's successor, 
who receipted for it as Treasurer, "not otherwise," but it 
was retained in the trunk where Curry had placed it. 

On the 4th day of September, 1819, a bill for an in- 
junction was exhibited in the Circuit Court of the United 
States for Ohio against Osborn and Harper, and the in- 
junction was served on Harper whilst he was on his way 
to Columbus, and on Osborn before Harper reached Co- 
lumbus. 

In September, 1820, a supplemental and amended bill 
Avas filed making Osborn, Harper, Curry and Sullivan 
parties. On that bill the cause proceeded to a decree 
against the defendants, and was appealed to the Supreme 
Court, and heard at the February term, 1824. The 
Judges treat as undeniable law, and founded their reas- 
oning upon it, that a principal in a trespass is jointly 
liable with the agent who commits it, and that it is error 
if he be not joined as a part}^ to the suit. 

The coiirc sav: ''The fact is made out in the l)ill that 



77 
Osborn employed Harper to do an allegal act, and that 
he is jointly liable with the agent who commits it, is as 
well settled as any principle of law whatever." (Page 
837). This responsibility attaching to an individual 
trespasser, who acts through an agent, the court applies 
to a State of the Union. "The direct interest of the State 
in the suit," the court say, "is admitted, and, had it 
been in the power of the bank to have made the State a 
party, perhaps no decree could have been pronounced 
in the cause, until the State was before the court." 
"(Page 846-7). According to this exposition, in absence 
of th« eleventh amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States, the respondents to the amended and sup- 
plemental bill would have been Osborn, Har^jer, Curry, 
Sullivan, and the State of Ohio, represented by its Gov- 
ernor and Attorney General, according to the precedent 
of Chisholm vs. Georgia, 2 Dallas 419. In this condition 
of parties by the public law, as stated by secretary 
Webster, the bill as soon as the relation of the parties 
was discovered by the Court, would have been dismissed 
as to the respondents, but retained against Ohio; for al- 
ready the court had said they had Jurisdiction to admin- 
ister any Jaw connected with the case (page 820-33), and 
of course, the iDublic law, a part of all civilized codes. 

Sustained by these authorities, we stand now on the 
hard ground of this proposition: Before the adoption of 
the eleventh amendment to the Constitution, an agent 
of the State could not have been held to a personal re- 
sponsibility by a Federal court, because the State, the 
responsible party, might be produced before the court 
as a respondent. 

If, after the adoption of that amendment, the agent is 
held respoDsible, it must be because the amendment cre- 
ates the responsibility. Here, in its puissance is the 
eleventh amendment, and let it speak for itself: "The 
judicial power of the United States shall not be constru- 
ed to extend to any suit in law or equity commenced or 
prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens 
of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any for- 
eign State." This amendment confers no power, it trans - 
ers no responsibility, it is wholly prohi])itory. It in- 



78 
terdicts, in particular cases, suits against one of the 
United States, and that is the whole scox3e of the amend- 
ment. By what authority then, a reader may enquire, 
is the agent of a State suable, after the offending actor 
has been guaranteid and protected by an interdict of 
the Constitution? If such responsibility, which did not 
exist before the adoption of the eleventh amendment, 
exists afterwards, it must be because of the words of the 
amendment, or some proper deduction from them, which 
we see is not the case. If such responsibility be trans- 
ferred to the agent, from the exonerated principal, the 
amendment is made craftily to undo its work. What 
did Ohio gain, it may be asked, or what did the bank 
lose by the eleventh amendment? The court comj)elled 
the State officer (Sullivan) to enter the treasure-house of 
Ohio — it was an act of violence — and take the money 
out of the trunk where Curry had i)laced it, and hand 
it back to the bank, the very thiug that must have been 
done if the eleventh amendment had not been api^ended 
to the Constitution. 

What a nose of wax has not the Constitution become 
in the dextrous hands of the Supreme Court! The object 
of the eleventh amendment was to vindicate the sovereign 
principle, attached to each State, which had been im- 
l)aired by the Constitution as at first made, as we learn 
ironi Chisholm vs. Georgia. 

The principle of State sovereignty was made the sub- 
base of the Constitution, and it lies there still, as does, 
in Indian seas, amid all convulsions, the coral founda- 
tion of their islands and and contiuents. 

The judge who rendered the opinion of the court felt 
the burden he was assuming. He said: ''It was not in 
the power of the bank to have made the State a party, 
and the very difficult question is to be decided ivhether in 
such a case the court may act on the agents of the State and 
the property in their hands.''"' But the difficulty by a 
masterful effort was overcome, the pioneers smoothed 
a id leveled the way for succeeding judges and courts, 
aid now, instead of the hesitating, apologetic language 
of the j)ioneer judges, the States are bearded by the 
autocratic dictum of Mr. Justice Matthews. So j^ower 



79 
grows! The amendment, when properly construed, 
covers with its aegis as well principal as agent: for in 
every human transaction, by every code, the agent is 
but the alter ego of the principal. In law they are the 
same man. It is not necessary to say more on this point. 
To punish or compel the agent of a released principal, it 
is clear enough now, was a i^alpable violation of the Con 
stitution. 

It was decided also in Osborn vs. The Bank^ that a State 
could not be regarded as a party to the suit unless it was 
so named in the record, the interest of Ohio in the case 
being conceded in the court' soi^inion. With a purged vis- 
ion the Supreme Court now say in the habeas corpus cases: 
*'To secure the manifest i:>urposes of the Constitntional 
exemption guaranteed by the eleventh amendment, re- 
quires that it should be interpreted, not literally and 
too narrowly, but fairly, and with such breadth and 
largeness as effectually to accomxdish the substance of 
its purpose. In this spirit it must be held to cover not 
only suits brought against the State by name, but those 
also against its agents, officers, and representatives, 
where the State, though not named as such, is neverthe- 
less, the only real party against which alone in fact the 
judgment or decree effectively operates." But in the 
Ohio case a very serions obstacle was interi)osed. Such 
a conclusion would have ousted the Supreme Court of 
jurisdiction in the cause, as in the habeas corpus cases, 
a conclusion to which, in the infiained condition of par- 
ties, that Court, by any process of reasoning, did not in- 
tend to be conducted. Party interests were paramount 
with the judges of the Suj^reme Court at that period of 
the nation's history, as they have been supposed to be 
since. If the Ohio case is to stand as law, and also the 
autocratic judgment of Mr. Justice Matthf^ws, the result 
we have reached is that the Constitution has turned the 
Judges out of a jurisdiction by the front door, but, w^th 
false keys, they have entered again by the back door. 

Jonir Scott, of Fafquiek. 
Warrenton, Va. 



80 • 
Note to page 79. 

When tlie two grounds, taken in tlie foregoing answer 
of the Commonwealth's Attorney of Fauquier County, 
are analyzed, they are seen to be rooted both in the bed- 
rock of State sovereignty, and though coming from dif- 
ferent directions, yet they concur in the x>i'o^ection of 
the State's agent from every species and degree of exter- 
nal responsibility. By the first the agent is shielded by 
the sovereignty of the States as respected and honoured 
by international law, enunciated by secretary Webster 
in McLeod's case [ante]. In the second ground the ir- 
responsibility of the State's agent, or officer, is deduced 
from the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution, ac- 
cording to the principles of Law. Let it be understood 
that the Eleventh Amendment only restores to every 
State of the Union the high and sovereign privilege of 
exemi)tion from the suit of an individual of which the 
Constitution, as first written, through inadvertence, or 
mistake, had deprived a State. In the first go-off of the 
new government that departure from the principle of the 
Constitution produced an angry and hostile defiance of 
the authority of a Federal Court, by the State of Georgia: 
The whole country saw the fatal error that had been 
committee in the structure of the Union between those 
sovereignties and the Eleventh amendmeut, through the 
fortunate power of the amendment, was added to the 
constitution. Now, by the wise decision in the Habeas 
Corpus cases, the State's agent, no more than the State 
itself, under that part of the Constitution, is suable by 
an individual, or by a collection of individuals such as 
proposed to degrade and bankrupt the state of Virginia 
by the hocus pocus of suing the State's agent when the 
Constitution forbade them to sue the State itself. The 
Eleventh Amendment, with its instructive history, has 
an important bearing on the unending controverry, 
whether this unexampled American system is a grand 
congregation of sovereign States, banded in an experi- 
ment in government or a mere huddle of federal vassals, 
whose precarious fate is decided in a quadrennial elec- 
tion. Sovereignty in the Union is an indivisible entity, 
the "residuum" beini^' left with the States, whilst the 



81 
other part is delegated, or entrusted, to a Central Agent, 
under the instructions of a written Constitution, until 
the Principal chooses to revoke the Agency. The system 
then does not violently execute the judgment of Solomon! 
When will the American politician, and the Supreme 
Court, learn that they enternize the Union when they 
agree to construe the Constitution in accordance with its 
fundamental principle, and not keep the States alarmed 
lest they be destroyed by a huge Octopod at Washington. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

JUDGE AVILLTAM J. EOBERTSOX. 

Judge William J. Robertson died at 2 o'clock on the 
morning of May 27, at his residence on Park street. He 
had been in declining healrh for two or three years, but 
was strong enough to go about until Sunday, when he 
was taken seriously ill. His death was a surprise to the 
people of the city, who had not generally heard of his 
illness. (The funeral will take place at 5 o'clock to- 
morrow (Saturday) afternoon from Christ Episcopal 
church,) interment at Riverview cemetery. 

Judge Robertson was born in the county of Culpej^er 
in December, 1817, where his father, a Scotchman, was 
master of the classical school. He entered the academic 
department of the University of Virginia in 1834, re- 
maining through 1836. He then taught a classical 
school at Ca]3tain Lewis W^alker's in the Bentivoglio 
neighborhood, in the lower part of Albemarle. He re- 
entered the University in 1841 or '42 and graduated with 
distinction from the law department, then under the late 
Judge Henry St. George Tucker. 

He settled in Charlottesville in 1842 or '43, becoming 
a member of the Albemarle bar. It was about this time 
he married Miss Hannah Gordon, daughter of the distin- 
guished Gen. AVilliam F. Gordon of Louisa. He rose 
very rapidly as a lawj^er, and in 1850 was one of the lea- 
ders of the bar in the counties of Albemarle and Louisa. 
In 1852 he was commonwealth's attorney of Albemarle, 
and discharged this duty with a distinction and ability 



82 
unsurpassed. About 1856 he became a member of the 
Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia. In 1859 
in a contest with Col. John B. Baldwin of Augusta and 
Judge Richard H. Parker of Winchester, he was elected 
a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. He took 
high rank upon the bench and remained a member of 
the court until the overthow of the Virginia g'overnment 
in ^65 by the fall of the Confederacy. He thereupon re. 
sumed in Charlottesville the practice of the law and was 
generally, if not universally, regarded as the ablest law- 
yer in the State, and his practice became commensurate 
with the State itself, he being employed in special cases 
of much importance. Some twenty-five years ago, uj)on 
the death of Colonel Baldwin, Judge Robertson succeed 
ed him as general counsel of Chesapeake and Ohio 
Railway and a few years later he became the general 
counsel in Virginia of the Norfolk and WesternRailway 
Comx3any. These positions he filled with great ability 
until a few years ago, when the infirmities of age neces- 
sitated his retirement from the bar. 

His second wife, whom he married in 1863, was Mrs. 
Alice Watts Morris of Roanoke county, mother of Sen- 
ator George W. Morris: She, with the five children of 
this union, survives him. — Charlottesville Progress, cop 
ied from the Alumni Bulletin of the University of Vir- 
ginia. 



TESTIMONIALS. 



The State of Virginia, in her nobleness, as well as to 
reward the loyal obedience shown to her higli, and supe- 
rior authority, and, perhaps, to hold it up to other times, 
awarded to each of her officers, engaged in that impor- 
tant business, a Testimonial of her sovereign approba- 
tion. To heighten the honour, and render the gifts more 
rich, those evidences of the State's appreciation, were 
sent, to the Recipients, through the gallant and distin- 
guished Confederate General, His Excellency Governor 
Fitzhugh Lee. 



^CnxUb ^iaie^ ^enctie. 

^ ^<- ^^^i^-*^^^^ l''^^^^'^^*^^ *»^^^j^-i-rf-«-^ 

4Ch^iU4.^^:^^^^ ^:.-<.*_-*<^t.^^ ^l^^a.^.^.^^. 




-!^^o^:.^^^^kJ5^ 




;;^7^u^ Xx^ ^^>^^^:^ *^^^ «.4U.m^ ^c^t^^ 





^^^^^^^^^"^ ^^^^--^ 




85 
PRESIDENT Mckinley and the par^ 

LIAMENT OF MAN. 



FROM THE TRUE INDEX. 
BY COL. JOITN SCOTT OF FAUQUIER. 



<*The parliament of man" is a distinctive title applied to a 
convocation of the nations to consider the restoration of silver 
to its rightful capacity, and is gotten from the select and ex- 
pressive vocabulary of Mr. Murat Halstead, the able author and 
distinguished literatus. The consent of so various and multitu- 
dinous an assembly to the rehabilitation of silver, and its use 
in the world's business, is the precedent condition to its remon- 
etization by the United States, as stipulated in the Republican 
platform, and repeated by their President-elect in his accept 
tance of the nomination of his party. But, as in the case of the 
Brussels' Conference, the condition might result in a disappoint- 
ment. Where there are opposing interests little is to be expect- 
ed from the arts of persuasion. The ultima ratio of force is the 
only instrumentality to be relied on by President McKinley, 
if he would at all, or in reasonable time, realize the expecta- 
tion of his friends, or still the clamors of the productive em- 
ployments, extending over so extensive an area as the United 
States. 

I do not propose to take arms against a sea of troubles and 
invite the United States to declare war against the formidable 
array represented in "the parliament of man." No! Let this 
country select its opponent, let it strilie the shield of a single il- 
lustrious knight and him dare to the encounter. The United 
States are great and powerful enough to lead the nations in the 
hoble enterprise of a common delivery from slavery to gold. In 
the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations" the con- 
stitution has forged the weapon with which it has armed Con- 
gress for the conflict. Taught by a painful experience the Con^« 
stitution-makers were aware that it might become as necessary 
to the interests and rights of the nation they were forming, to 
be able to wage a bloodless commercial war, as to maintain hos- 
tilities with the sword. "England is a creditor nation and should 
require yayments in gold," as Mr. Gladstone, in the words of a 
money-lender, has been pleased to announce as a becoming poli- 
cy in Parliament. She is represented here as the Shylock of 
this period of the world and should be dealt with as the grind-* 
ing usurer, and be chosen as the nation upon which the experi- 
ment is to be tried and where the example would prove most ef- 
fective. The United States may well revive, as becoming her 
character and position, the superb maxim of Rome, debelare m^ 
perho.%and compel that old and haughty nation to abandon the 
maxims and practices of a money-changer. England demone- 
tizes silver, and induces an unauthorized and disobedient Amer- 



86 
ican Congress to imitate her example, that her interest anri debts 
may be paid in appreciating gold — the crooked wisdom of the 
usurer. It is time for the United States to employ all the reser- 
ved powers of their constitution to break this fetter of gold. If 
Congress, in the plentitude of its authority, were to authorize 
the President to prohibit, in the whole or in part, British trade 
with the ports and harbors of the United Scates, unless theBrit- 
ish government would agree to remonetize silver, within a stip- 
ulated period, that concession, so important to the producing 
classes of the Union speedily would be made. The immensity of 
British trade with the United States was well stated by Presi- 
dent Harrison in the letter accepting a nomination for a second 
term. Its bulk and value expressed the dependence of the Uni- 
ted Kingdom upon that interchange of products and showed 
that it was as absolute as that of a nursing infant. The Vene- 
ziilean scare exposed a truth that with propriety may be alluded 
to in this connexion. It levealed the prudent soUcitude of Lord 
Salisbury to preserve unimpaired the cordial relations of the 
Queen's governmc^nt with the republic of North America. The 
British arf^ a brave and martial people, but are also a politic peo- 
ple, and no one, probablj^ is better informed of this than the in- 
telligent Premier. Contrast the amiable, good-natured, and ac- 
quiescing negotiation with Mr. Cleveland, who was so entirely a 
volunteer in the boundary dispute of British Guiana, with the 
menacing attitude when the young Emperor of Germany pro- 
posed to interfere with British pretentions in South Africa! 
With ruffled plumes England then showed that she was still 
the gamecock of P^urope. To this readiness for war, and genius 
for the affairs of peace, that historical nation owes its suprema- 
cy in western Europe. It shows another thing that its primary 
interests do not lie in America, but on the Dardenelles and in 
the further East. With her hand on her sword she negotiates 
iu the Mediteranean and the Baltic, but she can afford to be 
agreeable with theWest. The jurisdiction "to regulate commerce 
with foreign nations," though expressed in general, perhaps in - 
definite, terms, has yet a defined historical meaning. The Arti- 
cles of Confederation, or first Constitution of the United States, 
contained no such power as that now conceded by the United 
States, to Congress, and the want of it enfeebled the Government 
so far as to frustrate action when it sought to protect the foreign 
commerce of the country. But the States have received a com- 
pensation for their losses, thence resulting in the vigorous 
amended Federal Agent to which attention is now directed. 

As soon as the independence of the colonies was acknowledged 
by the home government the war of arms was succeeded by a 
war of imposts, in intention by the British Government, m effect 
by the rest of Europe. Adam Smith but a few years beforo had 
published "The Wealth of Nations," instructing government that 
freedom in commerce was necessary to its prosperity. The great 
work had b^en given to mankind two months before Jefferson 



87 
read his Declaration of Independence to Congress, so nearly co- 
temporaneous were those productions. In truth , the two men, 
one living in the old world, by the boisterons German ocean, the 
other in the new world as a philosopher, but announced parts of 
the same valuable truth— one the freedom of man's property, 
the other the freedom of man's person. Adam Smith's book 
was eagerly read in America and made the sub-base of both con- 
stitutions, but its radiant light more slowly was diffused among 
the statesmen of the continent, for there trade was still hob»* 
bled and hampered by hindrances and prohibitions— so difficult 
is it to pluck up a rooted error. It was by such causes that the 
oil industry of New England was destroyed, whilst they render- 
ed unproductive to the planters the rice and indigo of the Caro- 
linas, and the tobacco of Virginia and Maryland. The custom- 
house, as part of the taxing apparatus, was withheld by the 
States, Stretched along the seaboard those States, but Virginia 
particularly, attempted retaliatory measures, but with disas- 
trous results. The exclusions and disadvantages enacted by 
State statutes drove foreign shippers and cargoes to neighbor-^ 
ing harbors, where they were recpived upon more hospitable 
terms. To Washington, although in private life, all grievenances 
were carried, and his correspondence is the source of much in- 
f«)rmation relative to the concerns of that period. To the Mar<^ 
quis de La Fayette, the confidant of his opinions, apprehensions 
and hopes, Washington thus paints the dreary picture: "When- 
ever we have an efficient government established, that govern- 
ment will surely impose retaliatory restrictions on the trade of 
Great Britan. At present, or under our present form of Gonfed^ 
eration, it would be idle to think of making commercial retalia- 
tions upon our part. One State passes a law prohibitory of some 
article, another State opens wide its avenues for its admission. 
It is in vain to hope for a remedy for these and innumerable 
other evils until a general government is established." Upon 
this part of the correspondence a recent book makes this com- 
mentary : "As planter Washington argued, so argued every 
farmer and planter in the Union. There was a diapason of 
voices that went up from every neighborhood in favor of con-, 
ferring upon Congress, in some form, or under some condi-» 
tions, the power of commercial retaliation , ani when men saw 
that power placed in a new Constitution it went further to rec- 
oncile them to it than all other causes so strong is the desire of 
gain in an un prosperous people." 

There can be no doubt as to the meaning of those vvords, nor of 
the intention of the men who caused thera to be inserted in the 
C'onstitution. It is an authority vested in Congress to enable it 
to wage a commercial war and by that means to remedy wrongs 
remediable in no other way. The only doubt that can trouble 
tliH nation at this time, as to that business, is whether the new 
(ongress and the new President will adopt the stringent meas-« 
uri? for which Washington sighed. "The creditor nation," bend- 



88 
itig to the control of a cruel gold faction , has been willing to 
confiscate agricultural and other products to the single gold 
standard and in its effects to pauperize the colonies and depen- 
dencies of every region and race, and the question will soon be 
propounded whether commerce with America aJso is to be heap- 
ed upon the same sacrificial altar. 

When the new President, representing one party, but speaks 
ing for all parties, shall present the demand of the United Slates 
with the penaltly, in cases of refusal, lying in the background 
there is not a reasonable doubt but that Salisbury with alacrity 
will again consent. If any adverse influence prevail with him 
another ministry, with the accomplished Arthur James Balfour 
as its Chief, will be installed. To every understanding, not 
blinded to the signs of the times, it is manifest that the trader 
is resolved to have both the yellow and the white metals in his 
multifarious and multitudinous transactions. When he calls 
for both metals why should he be denied? Silver and gold sup- 
plement each other and have been used in a relation of value 
from remotest antiquity. With as much reason might some oth- 
er despot interdict the use of both eyes because a man can get 
along with one eye. The law of the Creator is not more clearly 
visible in the one case than in the other. President McKinley 
would not enter an untrodden path were he to grapple very 
soon with the British power. No act of any administration 
could be so popular as that. It is not ancient history that the 
United States coerced Germany, notwithstanding h^r invlnci«« 
ble legions, into an observance of comity, through tlie exercise 
of their commercial jurisdiction. During the administration of 
Benjamm Harrison American pork was interdicted the German 
market under the pretext, it was thought, of its unsoundness. 
An act was adopted by Congress requiring an examination of all 
meats intended for foreign markets and a certificate of sound- 
ness supplied to the exporter. The President in addition was 
empowered, if the offensive laws were not repealed, to forbid 
the ports of the United States to German commerce orto select- 
ed articles of it. The efficacy of that legislation was soon verifi- 
ed. The restrictions, like cobwebs, were all blown away and 
the American, hog grunting and sweating, marched in with mH 
the honors of war. So it would be with persecuted silver. What 
the nation wants, in this crisis, is a vigorous man at the helm, 
and It would be well if he were a hickory Jackson. The over- 
lordship of British power in our monetarv concerns must be 
shaken off". The United States do not intend to sink back into a 
dependency and wear again a colonial yoke under the guise of 
the reign of a Money Power. England may submit to such a 
vassalage, America never will. Wm. McKinley must be the 
President, not Morgan, Drexel & Corbpar.y, He must redeem 
his personal pledge, and the pledges of his party, to remonetize 
silver. It will not do for him to plead his inability to obtain the 
Consent of foreign nations when all the people see the weapons of 



89 
coercion which tho constitution places in the hands of a Pres- 
ident, who has in him the stern stuff of a soldier. The nation 
has endured this travail long, but at last the the hour and the 
man have come. 



FROM THE TRUE INDEX. 

MR. CARLISLE'S FIFTY CENT DOLLAR. 



Mr. UdUor:— Mr. Secretary Carlisle asserts, in his able 
speeches on the currency : If silver were coined at the ratio of 
16 to 1 that such coinage would All the treasury with fifty cent 
doUars, because he avers, in the market of the precious metals, 
where the relative value of gold and silver 's fixed, the silver 
metal bears to gold a ratio of 32 to L In consequence, that these 
depreciated, or "dishonest" dollars as he calls them , when made 
legal tender, and employed in the discarge of debts, would des 
fraud each creditor of half his dues. But that result could not 
follow, it were enough to say, because such a payment wouM 
grossly impair the obligation of the contract between the par^ 
ties, for the constitution declares Article 1, Section 10, ^^no State 
shall jjass any law Impairing the obligation of Contracfs,^^ an in^ 
capacity which attaches to Congress equally as to a state. This 
incapacity in Congress to pass any law imparing the obligation 
of contracts is created by the character of the federal instrument 
which provides a government of granted or enumerated powers, 
so that if we discover that authority to do a particular thing is 
not to be found in the constitution, fairly construed, the ueces-, 
sary conclusion is that the power has been denied. That was an 
important, perhaps a vital , part of the work, for protection to 
the sacredness of contracts was a base upon which those Con- 
script Fathers designed to found civil society in the United 
States. The quoted language was a proclamation from those 
sovereign democratic communities, in their high federate ca- 
pacity , of a moral law, as well as the enactment of a convenient 
constitutional restraint. 

The legislator knows, if he would build strongly, that he must 
build on the foundation of rectitude, a principle in nature — 
God's law — which this clause of the constitution reveals to have 
presided at that Council of The Fathers. If this silent, but 
potential, negative, which its framers left behind them, is to be 
taken out of the constitution, or reduced to a nullity by the cun- 
ning of lawyer and judgre, l-^t it be done by a declaration as plain 
and positive as that which binds a state of the Union, for if done 
by the Supreme Court, it would leave the States stiU in fetters 
whilst the mischievous project would introduce irresponsible 
Congress into a new and alarming jurisdiction. It would be to 
let the treacherous ocean to new beds. No good reason can be 
suggested why so delicate a power should be withheld from a 



90 
state, yot be entrusted to Congress, and such appears to have 
been the conclusion of the great men who fabricated the consti^ 
tution. Were the important question,agitated liere,allowed to be 
determined on tlie words and meaning of the Great Treaty 
among the States,, there would be little room for doubt, for this 
part of the fundamental law is a plain piece of work, liut the 
Supreme (Jourt, at once autocrat and oracle, has spoken on the 
important question and it is necessary to attend to its utter- 
ances. In Jul Hard against Green man the opinion of the Court, 
the whole Court, except Mr. Justice Field, contains these un- 
pleasant wrrds: "Under the power to coin money and regulate 
its value, Congress may issue coins of the same denominations 
as those already current by law, but of less intrinsic value than 
those by reason of containing a less weight of the preeious met- 
als and thereby enable debtors to discharge their debts by the 
payment of coins of less real value.*' The case may be found in 
110 U. S, Reports 421. The Supreme Court removes all difficult 
ties r.nd confers on Congrtiss, the jurisdiction with the free hand 
of a proprietor. This power, thus generously bestowed is de- 
rived, as we see, from the power "to coin money," [good money 
of course,] for the transaction of business. But how derived? 
As an incident, the authority to do a wrong and pernicious act 
from an authority to do a rightful and beneficient act. I? evil 
then the legitimate offspring of good, and has the Creator thus 
organized the moral law? We know how the fathers of the Con- 
stitution have dealt with the subject of the repudiation of con- 
tracts. We know too how the inner conscience detests and con- 
demns the act, and we demand some higher authority than 
Supreme Court Judges to legitimate and sanction this new juris- 
diciion of fraud. Another school of Latitudinarians has sprung 
into existence — "men not restrained by settled limits of opin- 
ions." That sect has assaulted the constitution as once it assail- 
ed the Scriptures. It is hoped that some compassionate and 
friendly overseeing power will sav^ the constitution from the 
vivisection and arrest the Supreme Court judges who have be- 
come a dreaded corps of sappers and miners. To limit the term 
of office of the court is the only efflca^'ious mode of correcting the 
evil. The Jiidgeii Loill then beeoine responsible fov luhat they have 
said a,nd done. We don't want an autocrat in our rej)ublic. He 
does not fit into tiie system. Kut, if we are to have autocrat- 
ic power, every lover of his country, and friend of virtue, will 
pray that it maj^ not be lodged in the bench of judges so bitter- 
ly denounced by Senator Vest for annulling the act of Congress 
which taxed the incomes of the moneycrats, or plutocrats, if the 
Greek word is better liked. The scandalous decison it is hoped, 
will not be forgotten when the new Congress assembles. 

The Free Coinage of Silver Party have not raised a standard 
of fraud for dishonest debtors to flock un ler. They do not wish 
to pay debts with Mty cent dollars. But they do earnestly de- 



91 
sire to h^ve the constitution delivered from such a perverted 
construction as prevailed in Julliard against Greenman and that 
the nation be allowed to retain the high morality of the consti-. 
tution and not have thrust upon society the low morality of the 
Supreme Court. They tnow if the victory be given them, that 
the free coinage of silver will raise the price of the white metal 
to the former standard of 16 to 1, for it is a part of the free coin- 
age monetary system that government should create at each 
mint an unlimited demand for all the silver bullion and all the 
gold bullion that is offered, at the relative value of 16 to 1. Our 
own experience has shown that even the gold discoveries of Cal- 
ifornia, that wonderful event, did not at our own mints disturb 
this steady balance. A plenty of metal money would result 
from the free coinage of silver which would injure no man , un- 
less the usurer. 

The productions of the shop, the manufacture, the mine, the 
farm and of everj^ other honest employment, would rise in value, 
the hire again would become worthy of the laborer and pros- 
perity woukl revisit the hortesof th'^ people, which is the final 
object of government. John Scott of Fauquier. 

Warrentox, Va., August 6, 1896. 



A CONSIDERABLE MISTAKE. 
In his letter of acceptance Hon. William McKinley states: 
HPrior to that time, [1878], there had been less than nine mil- 
lions of sliver dollars coined in the entire history of the United 
States, a period of eighty-nine years." If his words are to have 
thpir usual significance given them the intention of the Repub- 
lican nominee is to say, that in the entire history of the Uni- 
ted States the total amount of silver coined at the government 
mints had amounted , prior to the named year, to nine millions 
of dollars only. The correct facts are these, that, before demon- 
etization of silver in February 1873, one hundred and five mil- 
lions of silver were coined by the government and its mints, of 
which amount eight millions were coined into dollars, the rest 
into dimes quarters and half dollars. In addition a hundred 
millions of foreign silver coins, which had worked into cicula- 
tion here, had been adopted by our government as American 
money and made legal tender in payment of debts. So that prior 
to 1878 the United States had, for the various purposes of busi- 
ness, two hundred and five millions of silver in circulation in- 
stead of less than nine millions of dollars, as stated by the 
Honorable Republican candidate. Here then was Bimotalism 
in the United States, prior to the demonetization of silver by 
the Congress in 1873, standing on its two strong legs, silver and 
gold. For to this aggregate of money must be added the gold 
that, under a free coinage law, was being continually poured in- 
to the capacious lap of commerce , bearing a ratio to silver of 1 
to sixteen, the market values of the white and yellow metals 



92 
being kept equal by the free coinage of both metals. To that 
prosperous condition Mr. Bryan, and the Democratic party, 
would restore the labourers and producers of the country by 
making a money metal again of silver and giving to it, as 
well as to gold,the liberty of free coinage. Free coinage of silver 
with free coinage of gold is then not an experiment in finance, 
as contended by the adversaries of free silver and the people, 
but is the old and tried system of Hamilton and Jefiferson, ap^ 
proved by Washington. When silver was demonetized in Feb - 
rua y 1873, «.nd of course denied free coinage, the people lost at 
a blow about one half of their metal money, primary money. 
Gold then became the sole standard and naturally began to rise 
in value in the struggle to get it, until now if a farmer wishes 
to get a sum of money with which to pay debts or taxes, he will 
have to give for one dollar two bushels of wheat. When the 
question is stated in this way it is plain enough that by the 
destruction of half the mefal money the half that is left doubles 
in value as a purchasing agent. High priced gold makes low 
priced farm products, as the beggarv and bankruptcy of the 
farming class testify. And all for what? That the owner? of 
the gold through means of failing prices, or rising gold, may be 
the owners of the country, the government becoming not a 
monarchy , not an aristocracy, but a moneyocracy, a kind of 
Devilocracy. John Scott, of Fauquier, Warrenton, Va, 



APPLICATK^N OF PRECEDENT TO THE WRITTEN LAW. 

FROM THE TRUE INDEX. 

Editor of the True Index: — It is a serious affair when a 
government miscarries in one of the main purposes of its foun- 
dation and the language and meaning of a written constitution 
are set at naught by the insolent power of construction. A hasty 
look at Julliard against Greenman , 110 United States Reports, 
page 421, has revealed to the reader in what manner the Supremo 
Court, the Court of the constitution, has produced such a result. 
That bench of Judges, with the constitution open before them, 
decided that the authority to "coin money" empowers Congress 
to coin depreciated dollars with which previously contracted 
debts might be liquidated, and in consequence, the creditor de- 
frauded of part of his property. Never before has knavery been 
tiken as a ward of the court, and never before s > great violence 
done to human language! Was it ever known before that au- 
thority to do a right thing was tJ be used to authorize a wnng 
thing to be done? Yet there is no appeal from that decision , 
unanimous, if the dissent of one member of the Court be except- 
ed. Not only is there no redress for the wrong inflicted in that 
case,but the decision, by the law of precedent, stands as an au- 
tnor'ity for later Judges to follow. The reader sees now very 



93 
plainly, how the Federal Judge by the autocratic power of con-* 
struction, lielped along by the law of precedent, becomes legis- 
lator and even constitution-maker. The decision of the Supreme 
Court, in Juliard against Greenman, is now tlie constitution, 
though the men who made it turn in their graves. The reader 
must awake to new times! The constitution, as written and 
adopted, though still in theory the Supreme law, on that point 
henceforth takes a back seat, or "retires from active service," as 
the pensioned Federal Judge might express it. A Supreme 
Court Lawyer, if consulted, might say: "As to the power 
of Congress to coin depreciated money to pay debts withal the 
constitution has been constvued and the construction of the Judges 
supercedes the original instrument." That is what precedent 
and construction, those active co-op era tors and joint conspira-* 
tors in wrong, have done for the constitution. It is not easy to 
Fee what possible call , with two such forces at command, the 
Supreme Court can have for the recreating power of amend- 
ment. It appears that already the Supreme Court is master of 
the entire system, the States only their vassals. 

The law of precedent in the American Courts was derived from 
England, the realm of John Bull, and is the God of his idola- 
trjT^. John Bull is persuaded that all wisdom dwelleth in the 
past, and that what has not been done or said before is not wor- 
thy to be said or done at all. 

it is quite useless to argue that point with John Bull. He says 
be was never wrong in his life, and before he will surrender his 
opinions he will put his great fleet in commission and call to 
the field his invincible army of volunteers. That great landed 
proprietor, it is known, stays a great deal at home and hence 
moves much within the circle of his own ideas. Another of 
John Bull's notions is that an English Judge never errs, and his 
American brother too has planted himself on that deepset rock. 
But a Free coinage of silver democrat, from a supposed lunatic 
condition, i3 to be treated with some indulgence. Taking ad;* 
vantage of that gracious privilege, he would enquire into the 
origin of precedent in courts of justice and the propriety of ex- 
tending Us application to cases turning upon the written law. 
It is known, even to the laity, that in the beginning, in the ru- 
dimentary condition of Society, from which it emerged, thecom- 
mon law was but a customary law of the King'is realm. The au- 
thority, or rule of conduct, which the people time out of mind 
had been obeying as the law was the law administered in the 
Courts. Particular customs are excepted. The Customary or 
Common Law, was to be sought in the treaties of learned men 
but the abundant and perennial source of that jurisprudence 
was the decisions of the courts and the opinions of Judges. It 
is obvious that such a legal system must rest upon the law of 
precedent, the rule of .§^«re cZec/6^/s. But to take that rule, one 
Judge invoking another Judge, and with no other authority for 



94 
the law to look to, out of the common law courts and apply it to 
a class of cases where there is an ordinance, or statute, to ap- 
peal to, is to do an absurd and contradictory thing. What ob- 
viously is the function of Judges where there is a written law? 
To apply the law as written to cases as they arise, for there is 
the lawin the very words of the Supreme power. By what au- 
thority does tho Judge go anywhero else for the law it may be 
asked? If he consults another decision in another case, made 
by another Juage, he may find the law wrongly decided. No! 
he must refer to the law as written, that alone is his guide. He 
must not consult an oracle no higher than himself. The judg- 
ment of a court where there is a written law, is naturally only 
its sentence, and is confined in its operation to that case. Thus 
are we rid of the slavery of precedent! By it a wise judge may 
b3 comp lied to go wrong, because some blockhead has gone 
wrong before him. 

One of the departures of the French revolution from the boat- 
en track of old Europeand which greatly increased the bitter- 
ness of English hostility, [see Burke's indignant invectives,] 
was the unceremonious manner in which the law of precedent 
was treated by the French lawyers. The ( ode Napoleon directs 
each Judge to interpret the law for himsplf. I spefJt with diffi- 
dence fori have not read that monument of legal wisdom, but 
if rightly quoted, the example illustrates the point before us 

In this insurrection of the oppressed masses agai ist the gov- 
ernment of the Money-power, it i« hoped that, in i:he General 
Redress of Grievaiices, the Constitution, impressed with the 
seals of the Fathers, may be rescued from the beaks and talons 
of the Supreme Court Judge. I remember to hav-^ heard an 
able member of our bar, Hon. Charles T. Green, with more em- 
phasis than piety, express the wish that all the Reported cases 
might be burned. 

John Scott, 
of Faucjuier. 

A CARD. 

To TUK Voters of Fauquier Co. :— I lay befoi-e you a sum of 
the conviction^ in the criminal courts whilst I was thfi prosecu- 
ting attorney for the county, embracing felonies anJ misde^ 
meanors. Of the felonies two were convicted of murder in the 
first degree, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law. Lists 
of names of the cases accompanied by the dates of the conviction, 
are furnished by Mr.J. R. Turner, Clerk of the Circuit Court, and 
Mr. A.R. Bartenstein, Clerk of the County Court, with certificates 
ofoffice attached, which now lie before m9,but are not published 
here because of the space they would occupy in the newspaper. 
The number of the convictions amount to 248 during a period 
commencing with Jan. 1st, 1871, and extending to 1st of Sept. 



95 
1891. My official term, the seventh, ended July 1st, 1891, but at 
the request of my successor in office, I concluded tlie prosecu- 
tions which I had begun, which carried the time forward to the 
succeeding 1st of September. This summary bj^ no means repre- 
sents the labor which I expended on the criminal business dur« 
ing that time. In many cases there were repeated trials of same 
case, and in the cases which resulted in acquittals, for want of 
sufficient evidence to satisfy juries of the guilt of the accusfed,or 
because o' the innocence of the defendants, the labor thrown 
upon me was as great as that incurred where verdicts of guilty 
were rendered. 

But this survey of the period of my service as ] our Common- 
wealth's Attorney, would not be complete without some refer- 
ence to a trial in a Federal court to which I was subjected, for 
an alleged ontempt. The imputed otTence consisted in a refu- 
sal on my part to obej^ a certain restraining order, which had 
been directed to me as tlie (Commonwealth's Attorney of Fau- 
quier county from the 1^'ederai Court referred to, I choosing rath- 
er to yield obedience to a command of the State of Va., than to 
leave undone the act which had been prohibited by the Court's 
order. An explanation of the circumstances attending the trans- 
action, is necessary to enable yo^ to understand that business, 
and to determine whether approval or blame ought to be attach- 
ed to my conduct. It had been provided by the abortive debt set- 
tlement of 1871 and also by two similar debt settlements which 
succeeded it, that the coupons, ?is the warrants or certificates of 
interest attached to each bond were called, should be receivable 
for taxes and other public dues, and the stipulation was printed 
on the face of the coupon, 'fhe tax-receivable coupon was an 
ingenious contrivance of the creditor to insure the application of 
the taxes in the first place to the interest on his bonds and 
founded in a distrust of the honor and punctuality of the State, 
an insinuation of which every tax-paj^er was deeply sensible. 
The interest coupons, as they became due, were torn from the 
bonds, and disposed of in the market for as much as they would 
bring. In this way Virginia coupons had accumulated in mon- 
ey centres of England , but chiefly in London, to an amount as 
gre.it as four and a half, or five millions dollars. No provision 
having been made, for the payment or redemption, of these cou- 
pons, a great depreciation in their value ensued, until they be- 
came an object of speculation . A band of London speculators 
bought them to a large amount, to vend to V'rginia tax-payers, 
or to such of them as would consent to pay their taxes with 
the cheap and discredited coupo'o. If the proposed speculation, 
in tax-receivable (coupons, proved to be successful, it was evident 
that the State of Virginia would become bankrupt from having 
her treasury filled to repletion by annual harvests of tax re- 
ceivable coupons. She would be compelled, according to this 
scheme, to extinguish a debt of between four and five millions 



96 
dollars, added to the periodical increase of the coupons before 
she could appropriate from her own taxes money enough to 
carry on her government and support her eleemosynary 
foundations. To avert the calamity of bankruptcy the legsla* 
ture employed various expedients, and among them the Act of 
May 12, 1887, called, "The Coupon Crusher." That stai-ute, pass- 
ed at an extra session, and now memorable in the judicial his-* 
tory of the United States, directed the county treasurers to re- 
port to the Commonwealth's Attorney, the name of each tax^ 
payer who had tendered these coupons for his taxes, together 
with the amount of his tax bills, whilst it ordered e ich Common- 
wealth's attorney, under a penalty, not greater thati five hun j 
dred dolars, nor less than one hundred dollars, to sue in the 
Circuit Court of his county for the taxes so remaining unpaid. 
The coupon crusher was devised by the skill of the best lawyers 
in the state. It was confidently expected that it would do the 
b jsiness of the coupon, and the expectation vvas not disappoint-^ 
ed. The coupon now is dead or has otily a feeble and lingering 
existence, whilst the public debt, which it was designed to sup«n 
port and secure, is in a course of satisfactory adjustment. But 
a stormy experience awaited the coupon crusher, — a prolonged 
and bitter controversy in the courts. The creditors, as the spec- 
ulators became, b^^ the fact of purchase, were advised to have 
recourse to the courts of the United States under tbe belief that 
those puissant authorities would pnable them to destroy the ob- 
noxious statute. They were supposed to be a club of Hercules 
in the hands of the British creditor. Accordingly, an equity 
suit was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States, for 
the eastern district of Virginia, to forbid the Attorney General 
of Virginia, and all the Commonwealth's attorneys, to Institute 
those tax suits. The complainants' bill set forth "that they were 
Britisli subjects and were the owners of a hundred thousand 
dollars of the tax receivable coupons oi Virginia, for which they 
had paid thirty thousand dollars ; that they had sold flftv thou- 
sand dollars of that amount for fifteen thousand dollars, or more, 
to the tax payers of Virginia, who had tendered the same to the 
proper state officials, in payment of their taxes, but that the said 
officials had refused to receive the same; that if the officers of the 
State were permitted to enforce the Act of May 12, 1887, thecnm- 
plainants would be unable to sell the remaining fifty thousand of 
their coupons to the tax payers of the state /or antj pvice, and 
that theiv entire j^roperfi/ would be loi>t; and that the said Act of 
May 12, 1887 was unconstitutional and void." 

The restraining order was served on me the 11th day of June 
1887. As soon as I had read th«^ paper, I informed Mr. Overby, 
the Deputy Marshal of the United States who had served it on 
me, that, as an officer of the State of Virginia, it was \xiy pur-- 
pose to obey the law of Virginia, and to pay no attention to the 
order of his court. I acted in full accordance with that express.-n 



97 
od dotormination, and at tho ensuing September term of your 
Circuit Court, I Ijrouglit more tiian tliirty of ttiese tax suits. 

Before judgments could be obtained, indeed, as soon as it was 
known to the creditors' attorneys ttiat tlie preliminary notices, 
wli cli the statute required, had been served, Mr, Overby paid 
me another yisit but now to serve on me a Rule to appear 
in the Federal Circuit Court in the city of Richmond, at 11 o'clock 
a. m., the 22nd day of September 1887, to show cause why I 
should not be fined and imprisoned for not obpying the order 
prohibiting me from bringing the tax suits. I appeared and 
justified in an answer, that as an officer of Virginia, my natural 
sovereign, it was my dut^^ to obey her law in preference to any 
other.authority ; that the Act of May 12th, 1887 wa^ constitution- 
al «nd not void, and that the Circuit Court of the United States 
could not *:ake jurisdiction of the suit brought against me, be- 
cause forbidden to do so by the eleventh amendment to the Con- 
stitution of the United States. In reapect to the impeached stat- 
ute of May 12, 1887, my answer held this language : ''This Act of 
Assembly, obviously, was passed to induce holders of tax receiv- 
able coupons to submit them for identification and verification, 
as required by the previous Act of January 14 1882, the condition 
upon which the Commonweal*^h of Virginia allowed her treasur- 
ers to receive the coupons for taxes. That law has been consid- 
ered by the Supreme Court in Antoni against Greenhow, and it 
was decided by that final arbiter not to be in conflict with the 
constitution of the United States. [107 United States Reports 
770.] The Statute of May 12, 1887, which I have refered to, in 
justification of my acts, being designed simpl^^ to render a pre- 
vious statute effectual, must be regarded as equj^lly constitution- 
al with it — for the means are appropriate — and ought to protect 
me from the censures of this Court." 

\n respect to the eleventh amendment to the constitu<^ion the 
hinge on which the case finally turned, my answer said: "If it 
be true as a constitutional proposition that all the acts of a re^ 
publican government are assumed to be the acts of the State, 
and that this rulinsr of the Supreme Court is, indeed, a blow 
struck at the sovereignty of the people of the States, it is a logi- 
cal consequence that when a Federal Court takes jurisdiction of 
a state officer, whilst in the discharge of an appointed duty, it 
thereby assumes jurisdiction of the state. To hold otherwise is, 
to evadp its eleventh amendment and to treat the constitution 
with contempt insteal of with honor and obedience. A single 
consideration will set this truth very clearly before your Honor. 

"If by affiicting the agents and officers of Virginia with im^ 
prison men t and confiscation the Supieme Court can succeed in 
forcing the treasurers to accept coupons, without verification 
and upon simple tender, I ask upon whom does the consequence 
fall? Not upon the treasurers; not upon the Commonwealth's 
Attorneys. The consequence falls alone upon the State of Vir^ 



98 
ginia, whose treasury, by this means, will have been bankrupted 
by unconstitutional action of the Supreme Court. The Supreme 
Court need not to hi informed that, behind those treasurers and 
these Commonwealth's Attorneys, Virginia, stands to be affected 
by all the decisions against them. Through these mazes and 
crooked paths, Virginia is the party whom the Supreme Court 
is seeking to reach ; Virginia is the gam?i they are hunting. Al- 
though the only party in interest, Virginia is not made a party 
to the record here, b}cause the eleventh amendment, forbidding 
a state to be sued by an individual, awkwardly stands in the 
way. No other reason can be assigned for the omission to stand 
Virginia at the bar of this court. Surely, your Honor will allow 
that this Court, because it is disabled from bringing a suit 
against the Commonwealth of Virginia by an amendment to the 
constitution, cannot therefore lay violent hands on me, A power 
over a State withheld from a court, cannot, by any known canon, 
be construed to operate as a grant of power over an individual 
citizen of that state." 

Nevertheless, his Honor Judge Bond adjudged me to be guilty, 
and sentenced me to pay a fine of ten dollars and the costs, to 
dismiss the pending tax suits, to enter satisfaction of any judge- 
ments obtained, and be held in custody until the? judgm<^>nt of 
the Court was complied with. I, at once, informed the Marshal 
who had taken charge of me, that I would not comply with the 
judgment, and in consequence, was imprisoned in the jail of the 
City of Richmond, along with my co-defendants, the Honorable 
Attorney General, Mr. R.A. Ayres, and the Hon. Commonwealth's 
Attorney for Loudoun county, Mr. J. B. McCabe, where it was 
my intention to remain, but that I was taken before the Supreme 
Court of the United States, by virtue of f" writ of habeas corpus, 
which operated to appeal my case to that tribunal for review. 

After hearing distinguished counsel, the Supreme Court ren- 
dered its decision, through Mr. Justice Stanley Mathews, revers- 
ing the Court below, from whose very able opinion I extract for 
your information the concluding part as follows : "Th'^ principal 
contention on the part of the petitioners," said his Honor, "is 
that the suit nominally against them, is, in fact and law, a suit 
against the State of Virginia, whose officers they are, jurisdiction 
to entertain which is denied by the eleventh amendment of the 
constitution. We adjudge the suit of ( ooper and others against 
Marye and others, in which the injunctions were granted against 
the present petitioners, to be in substance and law, a suit against 
the State of V^irginia. It is therefore within the prohibition of 
the eleventh amendment of the constitution. By the t«rms of 
that prov^ision, it 's a case to which the judicial power of the 
Ignited States does not extend. The Circuit Court was without 
jurisdiction to entertain it- All the proceedings, in the exercice 
of the jurisdiction it assumed, are null and void. The orders for- 
bidding the petitioners to bring the suits, for the bringing of 

lBJa'07 



99 
which they were adjudged to be in contempt of its authority, it 
had no power to make. The orders judging them in contempt 
were equally void and their imprisonment is without the author- 
ity of law. It is therefore ordered that the petitioners be dis- 
charged. In Re Ayres, In Re Scott, In Re McCabe, 123 United 
States Reports, page 443, 

Thus you see, votnrs of Fauquier county, that the reasons which 
impelled me to resist the jurisdiction of the United States Cir- 
cuit Court, as has been shown by an extract from my answer to 
the rule to show cause, were accepted by the Supreme Court, and 
made the grunon on which my liberation from confinement was 
ordered. 

The State of Virginia, in her nobleness, as well as to reward the 
loyal obedience shown to her superior authority and perhaps to 
hold it up as an example to other times, awarded me, and to 
each one of the Honorable gentlemen engaged with me in that 
important controversy, a "Testimonial" of her approbation , and 
to highten the honour and make the gifts more rich, the Testi- 
monials were sent to the recipients through the distinguished 
Confederate General, His Excellency, Governor Fitzhugh Lee. 
I am your obedient servant, 

JOHN SCOTT. 
Fauquier County, December 14, ^91. 

utra 



